Scottish Parliament, 12 January 2006

409 contributions from 76 members. The official report.

Official Report 12 January 2006

Local Government Finance

George Reid (None, Ochil)

Good morning. The first item of business this morning is a debate on motion S2M-3795, in the name of John Swinney, on local government finance.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

It is always a pleasure to debate with the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business on these great occasions. I assume that the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform is away recalculating the local government finance settlement to ensure that a better solution is brought forward. That would justify his absence.

The debate on local government finance is an annual event of considerable significance for the council tax payers of Scotland, for the people who use and depend on our public services and for the many voluntary organisations that rely on funding from local authorities to deliver essential services. The debate is normally characterised by disputes between the Scottish Executive, which says that local authorities are adequately funded to deliver services, and the local authorities, which say that they are not adequately funded. This year has been no different; the debate has raged on since the publication of the Government's budget and the announcement of the local government settlement.

In the next year, the Government is offering local authorities a real-terms increase in aggregate external finance of 0.2 per cent and, by the following year, a real-terms cut of 0.1 per cent. The Government expects local authorities to make £58 million of efficiency savings, which it has already deducted from the baseline calculations of support for local authorities. That all comes at a time when we, in Parliament, are passing legislation that will increase local authorities' responsibilities for service delivery across a range of areas, not the least of which is the expansion of support for people who have special educational needs. Basically, in the next two years Government financial support for local authorities will, at best, flatline and, at worst, will fall because of the added responsibilities that are being passed to local authorities.

Within the present settlement, the First Minister and the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform demand that council tax increases be limited to 2.5 per cent. The likelihood of there being only a 2.5 per cent council tax increase was put in context by a Labour Party member who aspires to membership of the Scottish Parliament—Councillor Donald Anderson, the leader of City of Edinburgh Council, who said:

"It is fanciful to say that we can keep any increase to 2.5%. It is going to be extremely challenging to even keep any increase to four per cent."

Of course, 4 per cent is the level of council tax increase that the deputy minister told the Local Government Committee that he realistically expects.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

Does John Swinney recall from what I said to that committee that his quotation is selective? I said that the initial indications from councils were that some of them were thinking of setting council taxes above 4 per cent and that it would not be until we got full information that we would know what the council tax increase would be.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

Can I assume that that means that we have a guarantee from the deputy minister that council tax increases will be no higher than 2.5 per cent? That is the question that arises from the supposed clarification that has come from the deputy minister today. A quotation is a quotation.

The latest part of the debate came shortly after Christmas, on 28 December, when the Government issued a press release to show that local authorities had, according to the local government Improvement Service—yet another quango that has been established by this Administration—made £122 million of savings in the current financial year. The inference from that statement is that, if greater efficiency has been delivered, there is no need for any change to the level of funding for local authorities. It is interesting that, despite many inquiries, members have been unable to get hold of the Improvement Service's report. However, I was able to get a copy from the Scottish Parliament information centre this morning. From a cursory glance at it—I got the report only at 10 past 9 this morning—I think that the assumptions on which the figure of £122 million is based are somewhat shaky.

In the executive summary of the report, the Government says that local authorities have saved £122 million on the basis of six case studies across Scotland. It goes on to say:

"We believe that many councils are struggling to effectively measure the performance impact of efficiency gains. ... The information gathered as part of this study indicates that many councils are still struggling to define efficiency in terms of service improvement, focusing largely on the 'savings' element of more efficient working."

Our point is proved. Many of the supposed savings by local authorities are nothing more than the traditional budget cuts to which we have always been accustomed. They are not the service transformation that the minister has promised.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

On a point of information, Mr Swinney claims that that information is based on six case studies. In fact, it is based on six case studies and 15 returns from other councils. I congratulate him on his sleuth work this morning in discovering that the report was sitting in SPICe. He is obviously doing a very good job.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

We have been asking for the report since Monday and it was apparently published on 28 December. We were told yesterday that it was going to be published in two parts. I presume that the first half must be better or more convenient than the second half. The executive summary of the report states:

"Our analysis involved working closely with six case study councils".

If the minister is saying that those gains have been made, there must now be absolutely no reason for a council tax increase that is greater than 2.5 per cent. If, as the Government says, local authorities have made savings of that scale, it must be irrefutable that there should be no council tax increase beyond 2.5 per cent. However, I am afraid that I am sceptical about that.

On the same day that the figure of £122 million came out, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities published figures that suggest that there will be a black hole of £400 million in local authority budgets in the next year. The question that members of the public will ask is which side of the argument they should believe—the Scottish Executive's or COSLA's. It would be wise to believe neither of them. The Executive's amendment rests heavily on that figure of £122 million. I am sure that the deputy minister's argument will be that local authorities have made such gains that there will be no need for the additional resources that the Scottish National Party motion calls for.

Amid the clamour and counter-claims of the Executive and COSLA, Parliament should look for good quality and dispassionate information not from COSLA or the Executive, but from the analysis and findings of its own Finance Committee. Just before Christmas, the Finance Committee published a report that examined in detail the local government settlement and the contribution of local authorities to the efficient government programme. After thorough analysis, the committee stated, in paragraph 93 of its report, that

"The Minister has acknowledged that new funding pressures are impacting on local authorities and promised to revisit this next year. That is a positive commitment. However, the Committee remains very concerned that to meet the 2.5% council tax target, the Executive's target for spending leaves a shortfall which the Committee calculates as £84.9m over and above the £58.5m efficiency savings target."

The all-party Finance Committee calculates that, to get to the Government's stated target of a 2.5 per cent council tax increase, £84.9 million in new money must be made available to local authorities. That is the position that we seek to confirm this morning.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

I have a quick point of clarification for Mr Swinney. Even if we accepted the £84.9 million funding gap figure that is quoted in the Finance Committee's report—which we do not necessarily accept—we do not accept the report's claim that it would take a 6.6 per cent increase in council tax to fill that gap. Last year, £2 billion was collected in council tax, but 6.6 per cent of that is not £84.9 million.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

According to the Finance Committee, the funding gap is £84.9 million. If the minister is going to question the figures in the committee's report, he should tell Parliament and the committee exactly what the funding gap will be.

Unless Parliament takes action to press the Government to close the funding gap, local authorities will face the familiar choice between cutting local authority services and—once again—increasing council tax levels beyond inflation. What does that choice mean for the people of Scotland? For council tax payers, an above-inflation increase will add to the 55 per cent increase in council tax since 1997. Council tax payers have taken enough punishment from this Administration and unless action is taken to expand local authority budgets there will be another above-inflation increase for council tax payers in Scotland this year.

Alternatively, just as they had to do under the Tories' dreadful local authority settlements—which were normally condemned by Labour and the Liberals—councils could try to cut their budgets and thereby start to undermine some of the valuable local services that our communities depend on.

Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrat, Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale)

If an independent body—not COSLA or the Scottish Executive but, say, Audit Scotland—found that councils that were threatening to cut front-line services had considerable reserves of £1.6 billion, would John Swinney attack them?

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

Local authorities have to make prudent judgments on the level of their reserves and provision in the same way that the Scottish Executive has to make judgments about its reserves. I point out to Mr Purvis again that the Scottish Executive has reserves of £1.5 billion sitting in Her Majesty's Treasury. The Executive parties should not lecture local authorities when they have not got their own house in order.

The Executive prides itself on working in communities, closing the opportunity gap, giving dignity to older people and providing the best start for our children. However, as we all know, people in our constituencies fear the damage that might be done if the valuable services that deliver those Government objectives are subjected to cuts. Unless the settlement is improved, some of the Government's valuable aims for our communities will be undermined.

The Government must take action if it is to remain consistent on the objectives in its 2006-07 budget document, which makes it clear that one of the objectives of the local authority settlement is to provide "protection for all services" that are currently provided. If that is a Government objective, it cannot be delivered within the current settlement.

There are two parts to the SNP's proposal on the forthcoming year's local government settlement. The Finance Committee has identified a funding gap of £84.9 million between the current settlement and the Government target of keeping council tax increases to 2.5 per cent. If we want to deliver a real-terms freeze in the council tax, we must go slightly further than that. First, we want to make available to local authorities £93.2 million of new investment to close the funding gap and to give authorities the resources that are required to deliver a real-terms freeze in council tax. That money would be available if we were to allow local authorities to retain the £58.5 million in efficiency savings that they are expected to deliver and that the Executive has already removed from baseline local authority budgets. The remaining £34.7 million should be provided from the £49 million that the pre-budget report has allocated to Scotland over three years. The new investment fund that would be created by such an approach would address the Finance Committee's concerns.

However, the second part of our proposal is that the Executive should offer that money only on the condition that it is used to deliver a real-terms freeze in the council tax. Instead of engaging in its current foghorn diplomacy with local authorities, the Executive should be trying to secure their acceptance of that offer.

Our proposal can be paid for from two sources: the £49 million that has been set out in the pre-budget report, and the balances that the Scottish Executive holds at the Treasury, the unallocated element of which is, as the minister confirmed, close to £500 million. Instead of hoarding taxpayers' money to lavish on its election commitments, the Government should now give short-term relief to Scotland's council tax payers.

If members doubt that the budget contains enough room for manoeuvre to pay for that commitment, I ask them to remember two points. First, on Tuesday, the Deputy First Minister—[Interruption.] I am sorry. I meant the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business—heaven help us if he ever became the Deputy First Minister. On Tuesday, he asked the Finance Committee to approve £120 million of new spending on Government projects. When we asked where that money came from, we were told that it came from the central reserve.

Secondly, £70 million of the £120 million of new spending that we approved on Tuesday is being spent on the quangos of Scotland. What does it say about this Government if it can find an extra £70 million to boost the budgets of Scotland's quangos, but cannot find the money to support democratically controlled local authority services and protect ordinary council tax payers from big council tax increases?

Our proposals, which I hope Parliament will support, are designed to provide a short-term fix to the council tax problem that local authorities will face in the coming financial year. However, we also need a long-term solution that will lift the punitive burden that is the council tax and will bring in a system that is fair to everyone in Scotland. That is why the SNP—and, apparently, some members on the Executive parties' benches—support a local income tax that is based on people's ability to pay. Such a system is based on the principle of fairness, which is the essential characteristic of taxation. The poorest people in our society pay a greater share of their income in council tax than the wealthiest people pay. That is unfair. It is also unfair that the income and savings of people on fixed incomes, particularly pensioners, have been hit hard by significant council tax increases over the past eight years.

We also face the prospect of an increase in the council tax burden as a result of revaluation of properties. The Labour Party's submission to the independent review of taxation makes a case for a more regular review of property prices through revaluation. Such regular revaluations will mean that, under Labour, greater council tax burdens will be on the cards for the people of Scotland. I am sure that that will make a great election message in 2007.

We need to rectify that injustice by establishing a system that is based on the ability to pay. The attractions and benefits of a local income tax are clear: pensioners and other people on low incomes would be spared the burden and complexity of the council tax and council tax relief systems and, if we were to retain current national personal taxation allowances, people whose incomes are deemed to be too low to allow them to pay tax would be automatically exempt from paying local income tax.

Much of the debate on the local government settlement rests on the impact of the efficient government programme. Our position is very clear: we support that programme but we feel that it should go further. It is ludicrous that local authorities have been called upon to find efficiency savings to cover 3.4 per cent of their expenditure while central Government departments have been given much lower targets. For example, the target for enterprise and lifelong learning is 0.22 per cent; for environment and rural development, 0.63 per cent; for tourism, culture and sport, 0.86 per cent; for communities, 1.09 per cent; and for transport, 1.44 per cent. It is also ludicrous that the various departments and divisions are able to retain savings to spend on other projects, while savings that are made in local government and the health service are redirected elsewhere. The initiative was supposed to boost—not cut—front-line services.

I support an efficient government programme that works across the board. I want a major assault on the burgeoning number of quangos in Scotland, I want Government departments to be subjected to the rigour that local authorities have been subjected to and I want the Government to start putting protection of council tax payers before protection of its own departments. Such an approach would command support from the SNP.

This debate provides Parliament with the opportunity to press the Government into action, to acknowledge that there is a problem with the funding of local authority services in the next financial year, and to recognise that we have a chance to protect the council tax payers of Scotland from yet another above-inflation increase. I hope that Parliament will seize that opportunity.

I move,

That the Parliament notes the widespread concern over the inadequacy of the local government finance settlement for 2006-07 and 2007-08; notes the recommendations of the Finance Committee that the Scottish Executive should reconsider the settlement; welcomes the moves to make government more efficient but calls for this process to be applied equitably across national and local government and conducted with greater rigour; calls on the Executive to restore the £58.5 million in efficiency savings to local government baselines and to make available to local authorities £34.7 million from the pre-Budget report consequentials on condition that this is used to deliver a real-terms freeze in council tax, and recognises that these are short-term improvements to the unfair council tax that will only be resolved when the system is abolished and replaced by a local income tax based on the ability to pay.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

I welcome the debate; indeed, given that councils currently spend about £17 billion a year on delivering many of our public services, the subject is very important and worthy of debate.

That £17 billion is financed from council tax, fees and charges, non-domestic rates, councils' own reserves, efficiency savings and grants that are provided directly by Executive departments. This year, the Executive's funding for local government will account for more than a third of its budget. In particular, since 1999-2000, the amount of core funding has increased steeply by £2.6 billion or 47 per cent. By 2007-08, the increase will be 55 per cent.

David Davidson (Conservative, North East Scotland)

Will the minister give way?

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

That stands in stark contrast to the "dreadful" settlements that Mr Swinney referred to in his opening speech.

David Davidson (Conservative, North East Scotland)

Will the minister give way?

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

Yes.

David Davidson (Conservative, North East Scotland)

I am sorry, Presiding Officer—either my voice is not carrying very far or the minister has not had his ears cleaned this morning.

The minister has just referred to additional core funding. If all that extra money has gone in, why has council tax increased by 55 per cent since the Executive came to power?

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

Such decisions are made by locally elected councillors. Our track record over that time shows a 55 per cent increase in direct support from the Executive, which I have to tell Mr Davidson is in stark contrast to his party's record in respect of the council tax increases that came about as a result of underfunding when the Conservatives were in power.

Mark Ballard (Green, Lothians)

I would be interested in the minister's comments on paragraph 77 of the Finance Committee report, which states:

"The Committee also noted that the Aggregate External Finance (AEF) ... was only planned to increase by 10% over the current Spending Review cycle, compared with 21% for the Scottish DEL."

How does that square with what he has just said?

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

I point out to Mr Ballard that, on top of AEF, we have the direct grants from Executive departments to local government. We also have prudential borrowing and supported borrowing, so the subject must be considered in the round. As I said, we have increased our support to local government by 47 per cent since devolution. By 2007-08 the increase will be 55 per cent. Any independent commentator would acknowledge that we have supported local government very well over the period.

I turn to the motion—I will deal with the last part of it first. We all await the report of the special committee under the chairmanship of Sir Peter Burt, which was set up by the coalition Government to investigate the financing of local government. I will not speculate on what that committee might recommend.

On local government finance, let me make it quite clear that, as Scotland's devolved Government, we are committed to excellence in our public services. We have provided, and will continue to provide, local government with the resources that it needs to provide world-class services. Those resources have been used to deliver more and better services, new schools, extra teachers and record numbers of police officers. Those are just some of the outcomes that are delivering real benefits to the people of Scotland.

On 23 November, we announced to Parliament provisional core funding for local government of £8.3 billion in 2006-07 and £8.5 billion in 2007-08, which represents a year-on-year increase of 3.2 per cent in the first year and 2.3 per cent in the second year—a cumulative increase of 5.6 per cent. We also said that, following discussions with COSLA, final figures will shortly be presented to Parliament.

Brian Adam (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen North)

Will the minister give way?

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

I would like to make a little progress, if Mr Adam does not mind.

In addition, councils have other resources at their disposal. This year, for example, the Executive is providing £1.3 billion in specific revenue grants over and above the core settlement, and £827 million in capital support. In total, Executive support over the three years from 2005-06 to 2007-08 totals £30.8 billion. I do not think that we can be accused of failing to support local government, given the amount of support that is being offered to local authorities over the period. Councils will also get more than £2 billion in council tax and income from fees and charges, and they now also have access to more funds through the prudential borrowing regime, which we made available to them on 1 April 2004.

Tommy Sheridan (SSP, Glasgow)

The minister has talked about the allocation of specific funds and about the funds that are available to local authorities. Will he tell us specifically how much the Executive is making available for equal pay restructuring?

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

As we have said many times in answer to that question, that is a deal that was negotiated and agreed between the local government representative body, COSLA, and the trade unions. We expect local authorities to have made provision over the years to meet their obligations through prudent management of their finances.

Regardless of where the funding comes from, we expect councils to deliver best value for the taxpayer and for communities, which is why we were pleased to announce last month that the Improvement Service had reported that councils are on course to deliver at least £122 million in efficiency savings in 2005-06. They are to be congratulated on that achievement, which is well above the target that we set and shows that the target was both realistic and achievable. We expect councils to achieve further savings in the future. Those savings will, of course, be available for reinvestment to boost front-line services.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

Will the minister clarify two points? First, if further savings are going to be available for reinvestment by local authorities, why has the first tranche of savings—£58 million—not been available for local authorities to reinvest? Secondly, if local authorities are doing so well, why are Government departments being let off the hook?

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

In answer to the first question, the original money that was deducted at source may well have been reinvested in council support, but we have not put in place the bureaucracy for which the SNP constantly calls to measure all that. That money was available to meet the needs of the Scottish Executive budget.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

Ah!

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

A third of the Executive budget goes to local government, so that money could have gone to local government.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

It could not.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

It could so. Councils have taken advantage of the generous financial settlements in previous years to build substantial balances.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

The minister must substantiate his claim that that money has been reinvested in local authorities. It is a central—

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

I did not say that.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

The minister is now telling me that he did not say that. He had better get on his feet and clarify what he did say, because it is a fundamental point in the debate. If that money has been reinvested in local authorities, the Executive must be able to prove how that has been done. If it cannot prove that, it has not been done.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

The point that I made to Mr Swinney was that that efficiency money was freed up and could have been reinvested in a range of things across the Executive's budget, of which local government accounts for a third. The allegation that that money was taken away and reinvested elsewhere does not stand up, but that is the allegation that Mr Swinney has constantly made.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

The minister cannot substantiate that.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

Mr Swinney cannot substantiate his point.

The level of grant that we have announced, together with all their other income, provides councils with substantial funds. Councils have taken advantage of generous financial settlements in previous years to build substantial balances, some of which are required as a sensible financial precaution against unforeseen circumstances.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

Such as equal pay.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

Some of that money could now be made available to meet such on-going pressures and, as my colleague Mr Purvis rightly pointed out, the Accounts Commission published figures showing that £1.6 billion of balances were held by local government last year.

We recognise, however, that circumstances can change and that councils are facing a range of emerging pressures that, although they were foreseen at the last spending review, could not be forecast with certainty. In November, the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform met a cross-party group from COSLA to discuss those financial pressures, and another meeting is planned for later this month. It would be premature to anticipate the outcome of that meeting, but I remind members that the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform has already said, in his statement to Parliament on 23 November, that he would be prepared to consider the case for further additional resources for 2007-08, provided that local government shows that it is making significant progress towards the efficient government targets. That has always been the Executive's position; it remains our position today.

Margo MacDonald (Independent, Lothians)

If the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform is talking about reconsidering grant aid to local authorities, I would like to impress upon him the need to give the City of Edinburgh Council capital status as regards its financing. Because of the peculiar nature of the services that are provided by the City of Edinburgh Council, it would be only fair to put Edinburgh on a par with the City of Westminster and to allocate £6.5 million to service Edinburgh's particular role in promoting Scotland and in acting as a gateway to Scotland as well as being the capital city.

George Reid (None, Ochil)

You have about two minutes, Mr Lyon.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

I am sure that that issue will be at the forefront of the discussions between COSLA and the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform.

As well as engaging with COSLA, we will of course continue to push forward our reform agenda, which will include ways of streamlining bureaucracy to free up more resources that local government will be able to redirect to front-line services. I am in no doubt that councils will have within their grasp the resources to exert downward pressure on council tax rises in 2006-07 if they meet their efficiency targets and take other sensible measures to maximise their income and restrict unnecessary spending. Those measures include further improvements in council tax collection rates, which still lag behind the levels in England.

In conclusion, the funding that we are making available to local government in 2006-07 and 2007-08 builds on historically high levels of investment in local government finance. That record investment is helping to improve the quality of life of the members of our communities, to enhance our children's education through new schools and extra teachers and to provide greater support to pensioners through free personal care and concessionary travel. We remain committed to those goals, which offer stability and security to everyone who lives and works in Scotland.

As I have said, the Executive's position is that we are willing to engage in constructive discussions with COSLA on the continuing pressures that its members face. We have already made it clear that we are willing to consider the provision of some extra resources for 2007-08 and we will report to Parliament on the outcome of our discussions as soon as we can.

I move amendment S2M-3795.4, to leave out from "widespread concern" to end and insert:

"record levels of finance provided to local government by the Scottish Executive which mean that by 2007-08 core funding will have increased by over £3 billion or 55% compared with 1999-2000; welcomes the report from the Local Government Improvement Service which confirms that councils are on course to achieve at least £122 million in efficiency savings in 2005-06; notes that the Executive has given a commitment to consider some further additional resources for 2007-08 subject to local government delivering on their efficiency targets and that the Executive is engaged in an ongoing discussion with local government about the financial pressures councils are facing and the steps local government can take to maintain downward pressure on council tax, and looks forward to the report of the independent committee on local government taxation, which is due later this year."

David Davidson (Conservative, North East Scotland)

I apologise if my voice is not as loud as it usually is.

Members will see from my amendment that I have not sought to remove the first part of John Swinney's motion because it is simply a regurgitation of the recommendations of the Finance Committee's report on stage 2 of the budget process, to which all parties—including the Executive parties—signed up. I will leave it to the Conservative member of the Finance Committee to deal with that report in detail. I simply note that it is interesting that, even though all parties signed up to the report, the minister seems to be trying to put it down. The decent thing for him to do would be to make himself available for another session with the Finance Committee so that he could convince its members where they are wrong and why he thinks that they are wrong. If he thinks that they are right, he should have the decency to accept that.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

The Executive will respond to the committee's report. We have already indicated that we are willing to engage constructively with the committee and to respond to some of the recommendations that it has made. When we respond to the report, we will set down in writing the query that we had, which relates to the £84.9 million funding gap that is identified in one of the tables. The paragraph below that table suggests that a 6.6 per cent increase in council tax would be required to meet that shortfall, but those figures do not add up—6.6 per cent of £2 billion does not come to £84.9 million.

David Davidson (Conservative, North East Scotland)

The minister should go before the committee to convince it.

Over the past few years, Conservative councillors have consistently pursued a real-terms freeze in council tax rises.

John Swinney and I agree on some of the problems that councils face and I am sure that many decent members would agree with us. Although councils differ in matters such as style and management, they broadly agree on the difficulties that they face. It is highly frustrating that once again I could not get the minister to tell us why the 55 per cent increase in funding for local government has had to be matched by a 55 per cent increase in council tax bills. Maybe one day he will come back with an answer on that.

Three ministers are involved in this sorry saga. First, the First Minister says with great faith that the maximum rise in council tax will be 2.5 per cent. That is fair enough, given that inflation is around 2.4 per cent, and leads us to think that at last the First Minister has caught up with what is going on. Next the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business tells Parliament and its committees that the increases will probably be 4 per cent or higher. Then the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform refuses to tell Parliament what he thinks the rises might be, even though he is the person who makes all the assumptions about where the efficiencies will come from and what councils will be able to do.

Alasdair Morgan (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

The minister said that local authorities were doing better than had been anticipated on efficiency savings. If we follow that logic, we should expect council tax rises to be much less than 2.5 per cent.

David Davidson (Conservative, North East Scotland)

Absolutely—our parties agree on that. Perhaps the difference is that some of us have been members of the Finance Committee and can occasionally count.

It is sad when ministers start to talk about assumptions. As the man in charge, the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform must take a view on where he thinks that efficiency savings in councils will come from. When I asked him about that, there was no answer—the silence was awesome. Even people in COSLA were surprised that he had no notion about where councils would make savings. He is supposed to be giving leadership and guidance.

The usual ministerial answer is that councils are free to set their own levels of council tax and that, as they have been given the money, the rises are all their fault and are nothing to do with the Executive, even though it is piling burden upon burden on local authorities. The Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform's assumption is that the efficiency savings will help to pay for the delivery of what the new burdens require. I am not sure where the deputy minister is coming from when he says that the efficiency savings might be used to improve services. It is his and his team's assumption that those savings will fund the provision of the additional services that are being forced—especially through ring fencing—on councils in Scotland.

I must be extremely naive, but according to the manifestos of the Executive parties at the last election, the coalition itself claimed to be the improvement service for Scotland. Another Improvement Service has now been created, but the Executive does not seem to know what it is saying. I am not quite sure what it is supposed to do, but I always thought that the Government had to take things on the chin. If there is a major problem with a third of the budget, the Government has a responsibility to sort it out by dealing with the right people and coming up with good suggestions.

It appears that no assumptions have been made about what the Government should be doing on efficiency. John Swinney mentioned quangos, but we all know about the situation in the departments. Another case has arisen this week. Have civil servants from the Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department gone to work at the new transport agency? I do not think so. What will the civil servants who have departmental responsibility for transport do now that Transport Scotland has been set up? It seems that there is one rule for the Executive and another rule for everyone else in Scotland. As usual, it is the councils and the council tax payers who will pay.

The ministers claim that more money than ever is spent on local government, but they should listen to what people on the street say. They want to know where the improvement in service is. The wheelie bin roll-out in south Aberdeenshire is a nonsense. I have received numerous letters and e-mails from people telling me that although their council tax has gone up, they get only half the number of collections that they got in the past. Is that service improvement?

Mike Rumbles (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)

rose—

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

rose—

David Davidson (Conservative, North East Scotland)

I will give way to the minister.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

The latest statistics show that our extra investment means that there are 3,500 more teachers and 3,900 more policemen on the beat.

David Davidson (Conservative, North East Scotland)

The man in the street does not see it that way—perhaps because the bobbies are not actually on the beat.

Several years ago, at the beginning of the first parliamentary debate on local government finance, I said that before we put in place a funding process, we should hold a review of what we want local government to do. We have not done that. We cannot continue to have a system in which accountable councils are not accountable because all that they are doing is acting as agencies to deliver the services that ministers demand. That does not represent local design or local freedom. There is certainly no devolution in that regard.

We cannot support the Scottish National Party's motion for one simple reason—we do not believe that a local income tax is the answer. Roughly 80 per cent of council funding comes from general taxation. That is regressive and in fact represents a form of redistribution; the same is true of council tax benefit. However, we agree that the council tax system will have to be tweaked. It is fair, in that property owners can see the evidence on which it is based, but the bands need to be revalued regularly. That has certainly not happened in the past.

As far as council tax benefit is concerned, it is quite unfairly distributed in Scotland. However, if we were to have a local income tax, we would lose the benefit of that benefit, which would mean that rates would have to go up. So far, we have had no answer to that point.

Ministers have accepted the fact that councils have to do better at collecting council tax. There is no argument whatever on that issue. If councils in Scotland were to collect at the same rate as councils in England collect, another £50 million would come into the system.

No member has said yet how we can cut council tax rates. As we go through and past the Burt committee response, I hope that we can move on to debate realistic methods by which we can cut the council tax that our long-suffering council tax payers in Scotland have to pay.

I move amendment S2M-3795.3 to leave out from "and recognises" to end and insert:

"as many in Scotland are suffering as a result of the 55% rise in council tax since the Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition came to power; believes that a proposed new system of local income tax would be over-complicated, expensive to collect, would remove accountability and transparency from local government and adversely penalise young working households, and notes that the real problem in Scotland is the high level of council taxes charged, not the tax itself."

Mark Ballard (Green, Lothians)

Two issues are up for debate today: the current council tax settlement; and the future of the council tax. Although I agree with the SNP on the former, I disagree with them on the latter.

Having sat on the Finance Committee for the past few months, I have come to believe that the situation with respect to council funding is clear. Councils are being asked to do more, but with an almost standstill grant. As David Davidson said, the Finance Committee report was agreed to by the entire committee, even with its Executive majority.

Paragraph 83 of the Finance Committee's report says:

"The Executive is still assuming that this 2.1% growth in spending can be funded through a 0.5% growth in AEF; a 2.5% growth in council tax ... and £58.5m of efficiency savings".

As the committee goes on to point out in paragraph 85, a total funding shortfall of £84.9 million remains.

In his speech, George Lyon argued that some of the £58.5 million in efficiency savings could—I think that that was the word he used—come back to the local authorities. Again, paragraph 85 of the report shows the additional aggregate external finance at only £38.7 million. Given that the Executive's projected total efficiency savings are £58.5 million, I can see why the minister uses the word "could". There is no way that the total efficiency savings can be realised in that way, given that they are greater than the projected 0.5 per cent increase in AEF. According to page 162 of the draft budget, this miserly 0.5 per cent is enough to deliver

"protection for all services already being provided."

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

The increase in direct support for this coming year is 3.5 per cent. The member seems to misunderstand the financial figures that he has in front of him.

Mark Ballard (Green, Lothians)

I wonder whether the minister has included inflation in that figure. According to the figures in the Finance Committee report, the additional AEF is effectively 0.5 per cent. We are looking at an additional spending provision of £178.1 million.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

Has Mr Ballard reflected on paragraph 62 of the Finance Committee's report, which says:

"The Executive also reported to the Committee that it could not specify to where the ... savings were reallocated".

What does that tell us about the process in which we are engaged?

Mark Ballard (Green, Lothians)

It tells us that, when the minister says "could", he is speculating wildly. The truth is that we are looking at an effective cut for local authorities. There are two ways in which they can deal with that, the first of which is to increase council tax. According to the independent calculations that were presented to the Finance Committee, if all the shortfall were to be passed on in council tax, we could be looking at increases of up to 6.6 per cent. The Finance Committee recognises that that is not what will happen; instead, we will see less substantial increases but real cuts in services.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

The member referred earlier to a £84.9 million gap. How did he work out that 6.6 per cent of the £2 billion that was collected in council tax last year comes to that figure? I cannot figure out how he came to it.

Mark Ballard (Green, Lothians)

I rely on the independent evidence that Professor Arthur Midwinter gives to the Finance Committee. He is one of—I think—three people who understand the way in which the Scottish Executive budget works. I defer to Professor Midwinter on the matter. Perhaps the minister would do well to do so, too.

We should not believe for a minute the flim-flam that we are getting from the Executive on efficiency savings. The Finance Committee heard evidence from Aberdeen City Council that the £58.5 million savings that it is already expected to make are greater than its expenditure on back-office staff. In order to achieve the savings, the council will have to make cuts in front-line services. We are talking about greater efficiency savings and greater cuts.

We can guess which services will be cut, particularly when the minister talks about the need to "restrict unnecessary spending". We know that that means soft targets such as community education, youth work and support for voluntary organisations, which are the sectors in which cash is so desperately needed. In the long term, the effect of cuts in those sectors will mean that, instead of investing in that preventive work, the rest of society and the rest of government will have to pay much more to clear up the problems.

I agree with what John Swinney says in his motion: local authorities are being treated very differently to other government departments. I also agree with a lot of Tommy Sheridan's amendment and the problems that have resulted from the forced reliance on public-private partnership schemes. Local authorities have had effectively to mortgage their future spending with multinationals as a result of being tied into 30-year contracts. I also agree with what the SNP says on the short-term way in which the Executive is dealing with this funding crisis. I further agree that, in the longer term, we need to replace the council tax. The question is: what with?

The Scottish Green Party's policy on the issue is well known. We have made representations along these lines to the independent review of local government finance. We favour the replacement of the council tax and business rates with a form of land value taxation. In common with the present system, LVT is a property tax, but one that is based on land values and not on notional banded property values.

I want to take the opportunity to restate some of the advantages of LVT in support of the amendment in my name.

George Reid (None, Ochil)

You will have to be brief, Mr Ballard.

Mark Ballard (Green, Lothians)

Briefly, we have heard a lot about the problems caused by the council tax, but we need to recognise that there are problems with income tax. By definition, income tax hits those who are income rich but asset poor, in much the same way as Mr Swinney described the council tax as hitting those on fixed incomes, some of whom will be extremely asset rich. Any income tax is a tax on working. I think that that is a good thing and that we should see more of it.

Land is an untaxed factor of production that cannot be created or destroyed. Taxing land cannot distort the economy in the way that income tax can do. Too great a dependence on income tax risks placing all our financial eggs in one basket. We need to widen our tax base; not narrow it—

Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrat, Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale)

Will the member give way?

Trish Godman (Labour, West Renfrewshire)

You should be winding up now, Mr Ballard.

Mark Ballard (Green, Lothians)

I apologise to the member.

The Scottish Executive must support councils properly in the short term, but it must also ensure that it puts in place a sustainable and progressive future for them in the long term. I believe that that would best be done through a single system of land value taxation. That is why I will move the amendment in my name, which keeps the body of the SNP motion on the current crisis and proposes a sustainable solution for local authorities in the long term.

I move amendment S2M-3795.1 to leave out from "local income tax" to end and insert:

"system of land value taxation that recognises that ability to pay is not determined solely by income."

Tommy Sheridan (SSP, Glasgow)

My amendment to the SNP motion is in a number of parts. I look forward to the SNP member who sums up indicating whether the SNP is willing to accept it. I believe that my amendment does not detract from the SNP motion but adds to it.

Today's debate is about the double whammy that faces local authorities across Scotland. Not only is the Executive imposing greater efficiency savings on local authorities compared with those facing other public service departments, but it wishes to decrease the level of funding for local authorities relative to that for other public service departments. In other words, it is looking for more savings from local authorities, but providing less in real and relative terms for local authorities to provide local government jobs and essential services throughout the country.

That double whammy results in COSLA telling us that there is a £400 million gap between what the Executive believes is capable of being achieved in the local authority sector and what the local authorities say that they can deliver. Even if we accept that there will be marginal adjustments to what COSLA is suggesting, there is absolutely no doubt that there is still a huge funding gap in relation to what the Executive says about local authorities defending and expanding service provision while keeping council tax rises down to 2.5 per cent. That is complete tommy-rot; it is impossible for local authorities to work that equation.

We are talking about a double whammy not just for local authorities but for Scottish citizens, who are going to experience a reduction in the level of service that they receive. It is not often that I agree with David Davidson, but the fact remains that ordinary people throughout Scotland believe that they are paying more for local services through council tax but are receiving less from those services. That perception is widespread, because it is close to reality.

Scottish citizens face receiving less from council services while paying more for them, with local authorities talking about average increases of 4 to 6 per cent in council tax, adding to the 55 per cent increase that we have had since the Executive was elected.

If the Executive is so accurate and so honest about the funding packages, and if it has been so generous to local authorities, we have to ask ourselves why local authorities have had to increase council tax by 55 per cent since 1999. The reality is that the Executive has demanded more from local government but provided less in real terms.

The problems do not end there. Another section of Scottish citizens is going to suffer—local authority workers themselves. The detail of the settlement shows that the Executive is allowing for 2.2 per cent inflation, despite the fact that the Treasury estimate is of 2.7 per cent inflation. In other words, not only are there going to be fewer services and higher council tax, but local authority workers are going to experience a standstill situation or reductions in their living standards. If the Executive thinks that that is a good deal, it is living on a different planet. The reality is that the money provided to local authorities for the extra responsibilities that the Executive continually imposes on them is inadequate.

The suggestion that local authorities are a mass of inefficient government is simply not true. If we ask what is really inefficient, the answer is that it is the imposition on local authorities of private finance deals that mean that they sometimes pay four or five times more for schools and other facilities than they would if they were allowed to use traditional public procurement methods. It is completely hypocritical for the Executive to talk about efficient government when it imposes inefficient funding mechanisms on local authorities for the delivery of facilities. That has to be addressed.

My colleague Carolyn Leckie will elaborate on another point that we must address. The Executive talks about the need for equal pay restructuring and justice for thousands of workers who have been underpaid for years and who deserve their back pay, yet it is not prepared to dig into its pocket and pay for that restructuring. It talks a good game, but it is not prepared to pay, which is unacceptable. Part of our amendment addresses that situation.

Finally, our amendment keeps the statement in the SNP motion about the need to replace council tax. On 1 February—three weeks from today—every member who believes that it is time to abolish the council tax and replace it with an income-based alternative will have the opportunity to vote for that. Those who refuse to vote for it will be exposed as the political phoneys and fraudsters that they are—I look towards the Liberal Democrat benches in particular. I look forward to seeing on 1 February the voting record on the Council Tax Abolition and Service Tax Introduction (Scotland) Bill, which provides for the replacement of the council tax with an income-based alternative. It is open to others to amend it to provide for different forms of collection, but the general principle on which we will vote on 1 February will be the replacement of the council tax with an income-based alternative. I look forward to that debate with relish. We will see who says one thing before elections and does the opposite after them.

Bristow Muldoon (Labour, Livingston)

I will address most of my remarks to John Swinney's motion, but I want first to address two issues relating to what Mr Sheridan said. First, I note that Mr Sheridan directs his main criticism at the Liberal Democrats and how they will vote on 1 February. That intrigues me. Does it mean that he has a promise from his sister nationalist party, the SNP, that it will support his bill on 1 February? I look forward to clarification on that.

Secondly, Tommy Sheridan is proposing that local authorities should be fully funded to meet the equal pay obligations. I absolutely agree that they should meet those obligations, but the hypocrisy in his position is that his bill proposes to write off outstanding council tax debt owed to local authorities, which would hamper their ability to give equal pay to those low-paid workers. I hope that his comrade, who will speak later, will address that issue.

The SNP motion can be split into three parts: the local government settlement; the efficiency targets; and local income tax, which Mr Swinney touched on for all of a minute and a half at the end of his speech.

I turn first to the local government settlement, which it would be short-sighted of us to consider without first considering what preceded it. Since the Parliament was established in 1999, funding for local government services has risen by £2.6 billion, or 47 per cent. The increase will be £3 billion by the end of the current spending period.

Many of those additional resources have been allocated to specific priorities of the Parliament, which are often shared by local government, and there have been additional payroll costs. However, the recent period of growth in the local government budget represents a substantial increase in the resources available to local government, which I imagine that most local authorities would not have dared to hope for when the Parliament was established in 1999. The other point that should be made is that that level of sustained additional funding has been possible only through the success of the United Kingdom Labour Government in managing the UK economy.

Of course, nobody would expect the sustained level of increase to continue forever. The levels of increase over the next two years are tighter than they have been in previous years. We have to consider the overall settlement in the context of the increased budget in the past six years.

That brings me on to the efficiency savings. It is unreasonable for any large organisation to say that it cannot re-examine the way in which it delivers its services or manufactures its products.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

If it is acceptable for all organisations to consider the way in which they deliver public services, can the member explain why local authorities have been required to find 3.4 per cent of their expenditure in efficiency savings, yet most Scottish Executive departments have to find less than 1 per cent? Where is the equity in that?

Bristow Muldoon (Labour, Livingston)

Mr Swinney's argument has some validity. The Scottish Executive should examine its departments in that regard and I believe that there probably are departments that should be examining their performance in order to reach higher efficiency targets than have been set. However, I am addressing the specific issue of local government efficiency targets, which I do not believe are unreasonable.

As I was saying, every large organisation in the world, whether in the public or the private sector, should continually examine the efficiency with which it delivers the services that it exists to deliver.

It is not the case that local authorities have been left to meet the efficiency targets on their own. The Scottish Executive has been supporting local authorities through the modernising government fund, which has been in place for many years. Further, as the minister outlined earlier, additional resources are available for local authorities to invest in modernising services through the prudential borrowing regime and many other funding sources.

Brian Adam (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen North)

Will the member give way?

Bristow Muldoon (Labour, Livingston)

No, I wish to make progress.

The further opportunities to deliver services are not all about cuts. There are many ways in which local authorities can enhance the way in which they deliver services and at the same time deliver them more efficiently. For example, in my area, West Lothian Council, in partnership with the national health service in the Lothians, has developed a community health partnership that delivers care services to elderly and disabled people in West Lothian through a joint organisation that provides a better and more efficient service to people who are in receipt of those services. Many such examples exist.

The final issue that I want to deal with is that of the nationalists' local income tax plans. It is illuminating that John Swinney chose to spend so little time on the policy in an 18-minute speech, particularly when, just before he gave up his position as SNP leader, he said:

"The poll tax finished off the Tories and I'm very confident that the council tax will finish off the Labour party."

If the SNP's policy on this issue is as popular as Mr Swinney thinks it is, I do not know why he did not give it prime billing in his speech this morning. However, the reality is that, when the SNP claim popularity for their policy, it is on the basis of their axe the tax campaign, not on the basis of the higher income tax campaign that hides behind it.

It is hardly surprising that the SNP wants no great scrutiny of its local income tax plans, because its policy paper on the issue is a deeply flawed piece of work. First, the plans assume that, in the calculation of the additional income tax that people in Scotland would pay, existing council tax payment would be transferred to local government. However, at the same time, the SNP completely ignores the issue of council tax benefit in its analysis of who would be a winner or a loser in its income tax bands. It is misleading for the policy document to ignore the fact that more than 400,000 households already receive full council tax benefit and, therefore, pay no council tax and that a further 120,000 households pay only partial council tax.

The second part of the SNP's proposals that misleads is the fact that five out of the eight households that are used as examples of those that would gain or lose are in bands D, F or H. Clearly, that is an attempt to show the policy in the best possible light. However, 64 per cent of Scots live in houses that are in bands A, B and C. If the SNP were honest about the analysis of its policy, it would base its analysis on the real spread of properties that exists in Scotland.

The third flaw in the proposals is that, even by the SNP's estimates, Glasgow would pay the highest income tax rates in the UK. On the SNP's own estimates, the rate would be 4.8 per cent higher than the rate in comparable cities in England. I doubt the SNP's figures—I think that they will be even higher than that—but, even on that basis, we can see that the SNP is proposing a policy that would result in more middle and higher-income earners leaving Glasgow at a time when the city is trying to attract more of them to move to the city.

The SNP's local income tax proposals are deeply flawed. I am not surprised that it does not draw much attention to them and I look forward to the party campaigning with the policy as its number 1 priority in the Scottish Parliament elections, as I am sure that that will result in an even heavier defeat for the party than it has been used to in recent years.

Trish Godman (Labour, West Renfrewshire)

We now move to the open debate. I point out that I have already had to inform four members that they will not be called, so I will keep members to extremely tight six-minute speeches.

Fergus Ewing (Scottish National Party, Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber)

The SNP has begun this year by addressing an issue that is of concern to a great number of people in Scotland: the burden that the council tax places on many people in our society, not least our senior citizens and those on fixed incomes.

We know that the council tax has risen substantially since it was introduced by the Tories. The Conservatives increased it substantially and the Labour Government has increased it even more. The impact of that is that, in all but five local authorities in Scotland, the average council tax band—band D—now exceeds £1,000 a year. If we are honest and can leave the political party trenches for a moment, we all know in our heart of hearts that the burden that that places on a huge number of our citizens is, simply, unfair.

In what I thought was a robust and coherent performance this morning, John Swinney focused on the immediate priority of what we would do about the current local government settlement if we were in Government just now. He identified—using figures that have been approved by the Finance Committee—a method by which we can freeze council tax figures now. That is something that people such as Bristow Muldoon should give some credence to.

Bristow Muldoon (Labour, Livingston)

Will the member give way?

Fergus Ewing (Scottish National Party, Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber)

Bristow Muldoon has had his say.

That is what people in Scotland seek from this Parliament and the Scottish Government. More than 10 years ago, Nicky Fairbairn said that Scotland was fortunate not to have a Government. Looking at the performance of the Government that we have, I can begin to understand what he meant.

Margo MacDonald (Independent, Lothians)

Will the member give way?

Fergus Ewing (Scottish National Party, Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber)

Certainly not.

John Swinney also recognised that, although local authorities are required to make savings of more than 3 per cent, the same requirement does not apply to the Executive. In his response to that point, the minister showed all the poise and assurance of a man overboard floundering in the sea, so I will throw him a lifebelt. Transport Scotland has just been created, which is a new quango. We do not know exactly how many employees it will have but a figure of around 200 has been mentioned—perhaps the minister could give us an accurate figure. Plainly, it is a huge and potentially valuable resource. However, I have a question for the minister. If around 200 or more civil service jobs have been created, how many fewer civil servants will there be in the Enterprise, Transport and Lifelong Learning Department of the Scottish Executive? I safely predict that the minister does not know, although he should do, because he is the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business.

Rather than recognising the reality, which is that the council tax is a huge burden on our senior citizens and those on low and fixed incomes and has increased by 55 per cent, the Executive's amendment talks about the steps that local government can take to "maintain downward pressure". If what we have seen—a 55 per cent increase—is downward pressure, goodness knows what it would be like if there were even higher increases.

I was interested to note that, in response to the crucial question of the £85 million gap that the Finance Committee identified, the minister said that he did not necessarily accept the figure. I think that we deserve better from a minister in response to a considered piece of work by a committee of this Parliament that has received advice from Professor Midwinter, which shows that there is a gap of £85 million. Instead, what does the minister say? Does he say, "Yes, there is a gap," or "No, there is no gap"? No. He says: "It ain't necessarily so." Ira Gershwin is a good songwriter, but he should not be writing the script for the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business in the Scottish Executive.

When a minister with responsibility for finance comes before this Parliament, he should be able to tell us where the money has gone. It was Deep Throat, in the film, "All the President's Men", who gave Woodward and Bernstein the excellent advice: "Follow the money." We should expect George Lyon to realise that that is advice that it is incumbent on him to take. However, he does not know were the money has gone.

It is awfully sad that we have not heard an acknowledgement that the local income tax policy is a coherent alternative. I know that the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business perhaps supports the local income tax policy, as do his Liberal Democrat colleagues, because they tell us so—and we have to take that at face value. However, it remains to be seen whether the support that the Liberal Democrats give to the local income tax policy is as enthusiastic as the support that they give to their leadership. The good news is that we will not have long to wait. Mr Kennedy may have been unfairly voted off in the first round of the political version of the Anne Robinson show, "The Weakest Link". Perhaps, minister, "You are the weakest link."

John Swinburne (SSCUP, Central Scotland)

It would take some kind of twisted genius to devise a method of taxation that was worse than the council tax, which is a basically flawed system of taxation. It is people, not houses, who use services.

On average, since the council tax's inception, a staggering 7.5 per cent of council tax has gone uncollected. How can 150,000 houses be lost like that? It is beyond me. That is the equivalent of losing East Kilbride, Cumbernauld and one or two other places. The authorities cannot find their own houses, yet ministers have the temerity to talk about efficient government initiatives. Let us get back to something a bit more democratic than initiatives of that sort. In Scotland, 40 per cent of people bear the burden of council services, while 60 per cent do not contribute one penny towards them.

Many among that 40 per cent are senior citizens. If the load was spread more evenly across the 100 per cent, current senior citizen band F council tax payers would have a payment of £40 a week reduced to £16 a week and the people who are not currently paying tax would be contributing a fair share. That is called basic democracy. We have been dancing on the head of a financial pin for the past couple of hours and getting nowhere, bandying figures about that half the people in the chamber do not even understand—and that includes some ministers, I might add. The whole basis is totally flawed.

Ministers are reluctant to change the system because at the next election they do not want to offend 60 per cent of the electorate—who might think that they will have to put their hands in their pockets and contribute to local taxation—and they would not wish to do that, whatever else they do. Of course, they could always approach number 10, where they would probably be advised to establish a council tax tsar, as we have tsars for everything in this country nowadays.

I will give an example to illustrate the reality of the situation. A pensioner approached me yesterday to discuss the fact that she had been pursued for non-payment of council tax by South Lanarkshire Council. That was quite right—the council must chase people up. She panicked—she was in a bit of a state. It is not nice for people who have been in the habit of paying all their bills timeously to get threatened with legal action for non-payment of council tax. She checked out her receipts and went to the council's office. It turned out that she owed £8, which she paid immediately. What a victory that was for South Lanarkshire Council's legal department and for the people who chase up council tax payments.

Has no one here ever heard of joined-up government? We have a very efficient method of taxation collection in this country. It is called pay as you earn, and the Inland Revenue does it for us. Bill Aitken is always going on about the fact that 50 per cent of fines imposed in courts are never collected. Why do the courts not just get the PAYE people to adjust the criminals' code number and reimburse the country by the amount of the fine? Why is the very same thing not done with the council tax? If we were to do away with council tax and had a fairer local income tax, we would have a much better system.

It is well documented that 80 per cent of local authority income is centrally funded and that the other 20 per cent comes from council tax. In effect, authorities lose houses all over the place and cannot collect all of the tax. If we went to a system of collection through income tax, and if the whole 100 per cent of council expenditure was centrally funded, the electorate would judge local authorities' accountability not on how they raise their funds but on the efficiency with which they use them.

The accountability argument that is sometimes made can rest on claims like, "Look how low we're keeping the council tax," but let me give members some facts—and they are frightening to see. It is a fact that, in 1993, a pensioner in a band F house in South Lanarkshire had to pay £782 in council tax, with water charges of £108. It is a fact that, in 2005, the council tax charge for the same house had risen to £1,502. That is a 91.9 per cent increase. It is a fact that the water charges for that house had risen to £502, which is a 363 per cent increase. It is a fact that the combined council tax and water rates over that 12-year period rose from £891 to £2,005, which is an increase of 124 per cent.

I only wish to God that pensions had risen by a commensurate amount. Sadly, pensions have not been increased by anything like that amount. Senior citizens, as well as others on fixed incomes, are continuing to have their living standards eroded. We must have change and we must have democracy. We must get rid of the council tax and adopt a fairer local income tax. Ministers must stop playing at being politicians. They need to look after the people. They should look after the elderly, and they should get their act together.

Paul Martin (Labour, Glasgow Springburn)

This is an annual event in the Scottish Parliament. We discuss the local government settlement, and it is as predictable as the Burns dinner in January or February every year. The hypocrisy from the SNP is also pretty predictable. I remind SNP members that if they introduced a local income tax, we would not have these debates in future, because the decisions would be taken centrally and local government would not be involved in them. We would not hear from COSLA or council leaders about the local government settlement, because the Parliament would decide the local income tax. SNP members might seek to portray themselves as representing councils throughout Scotland, but I remind them that they would not represent them but would take the decisions under the SNP's proposals.

I will respond to the points that David Davidson made about the man in the street. In the spirit of David Cameron's new style, will David Davidson ask him to apologise to the man in the street in Glasgow for the council tax increases that occurred during the Tory years? I remind him that, in 1996-97, there was a 21.9 per cent increase. Will he apologise for the increase in 1998-99 of 9.3 per cent?

I congratulate my new colleague, Charlie Gordon, on what he delivered for Glasgow in 2000. After the Scottish Parliament was formed, there was a 0 per cent increase in council tax. In every year following that, there have been only inflationary increases.

Alasdair Morgan (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

I am a bit puzzled by the member's reference to a local income tax. I presume that he was not referring to the socialists' service tax. The whole point about a local income tax is that the rate is set locally, not nationally.

Paul Martin (Labour, Glasgow Springburn)

From looking on the SNP's website for details about the process for setting the local income tax, I think that much work has to be done. I give Tommy Sheridan credit for making his proposal to Parliament and allowing us to interrogate it. That cannot be said of the SNP's proposal, which was set out only in a manifesto. If the SNP introduces a bill, we will scrutinise its proposals for collecting a local income tax.

The Parliament has on many occasions shown great pity for those who live in deprived areas. We talk about league tables. Our civil servants are obsessed with presenting in glossy documents and on websites the terrible statistics on what faces Glasgow. We spend a lifetime on providing league tables that show the educational attainment challenges that face Glasgow and we talk about the health statistics that face Glasgow and many other local authority areas. However, we do not talk about how the local government settlement should attack those deprivation figures, so I call on COSLA's leader, who I know is considering the matter, to examine the proposals that Charlie Gordon made to COSLA in his former capacity with Glasgow City Council and the case that other local authorities have made for deprivation figures to be taken into account in the allocation of local government funding. The challenges that face not only Glasgow City Council, but other local authorities, should be considered at the same time.

Of course, tackling deprivation costs money. If we are serious about tackling educational attainment figures in Glasgow that are not at the levels that they should be, we need money. That is why I am willing to consider whether efficiency savings, if they can be recovered, should be redirected to deal with deprivation. We might not allocate such funds through the local government settlement, but we might be able to tackle deprivation in other ways by using the budget that is available to the Scottish Executive. I would commend the Executive if it used the efficiency savings from local government to tackle deprivation in other ways. We talk about siphoning off funds, but I would commend the Executive for redirecting funds to tackle deprivation. I would also commend local government leaders throughout Scotland if they were willing to make efficiency savings to tackle deprivation.

Tommy Sheridan's amendment refers to

"uneconomic public private partnership deals".

We talk about the man in the street, whom David Davidson mentioned. All five secondary schools in my constituency have been rebuilt or refurbished under PPP schemes. Not one teacher, constituent or pupil has complained about a public-private partnership. Every head teacher involved in a partnership has commended the programme. Time will tell whether the partnerships have been economic, but the man in the street supports the proposals and commends us for the improvements in schools as a result of public-private partnerships.

Bill Aitken (Conservative, Glasgow)

There is a "Groundhog Day" inevitability to debates such as today's, but in one respect the debate has been different, because it is unprecedented in the Parliament's history for a committee and a minister to be at such variance, not on policy—that is to be accepted and expected—but on the basic facts and the basic arithmetic.

Having gone into considerable detail, the Finance Committee estimates an £84.9 million shortfall in the proposed funding for local government expenditure. I listened to George Lyon—I accept that the fault is not his, as he came on to the park somewhat late—and I found his arguments less than convincing. However, I give him credit for at least turning up. Three Labour members of the Finance Committee—Des McNulty, Wendy Alexander and Frank McAveety, all of whom we know are assiduous members—have not turned up. The clear reason for that is that they are not prepared to attempt to explain away the situation. Andrew Arbuckle is present and I look forward to hearing whether he helps George Lyon out of a hole that I admit is not of his making.

Mark Ballard (Green, Lothians)

rose—

Bill Aitken (Conservative, Glasgow)

I will give way after pursuing my point.

We have three viewpoints: what the First Minister has said, what the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform has said and what George Lyon has said. However, what cannot be gainsaid is the fact that the minister's figures are completely wrong—for example, he says that inflation is 2.2 per cent, but it is 2.7 per cent. The figure of £84.9 million simply cannot be disputed.

I give way to Mr Ballard.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

The point in question—

Trish Godman (Labour, West Renfrewshire)

Minister, it is Mark Ballard who has been called.

Mark Ballard (Green, Lothians)

Is Bill Aitken aware that, in addition to the Finance Committee report that the additional AEF is 0.5 per cent in real terms, the minister contradicts page 5 of the SPICe briefing, which says that the change in revenue support grant is 0.6 per cent? The minister contradicts not just the Finance Committee and the members who are present, but SPICe.

Bill Aitken (Conservative, Glasgow)

The minister is in splendid and insecure isolation. The suggestion is that everybody but our George is out of step, but we are not swallowing that.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

I have made two points. First, I said to Mr Ballard that the increase was 3.2 per cent in cash terms; I accept that it is 0.5 per cent in real terms. Secondly, I questioned the assumptions that the committee used to calculate the £84.9 million gap. We do not recognise the committee's figure of 6.6 per cent to fill that gap and we do not understand how that calculation can be made when £2.2 billion is collected in council tax.

Bill Aitken (Conservative, Glasgow)

The minister's problem is that he does not recognise economic figures when he sees them—that has been behind the dispute this morning.

The SNP's proposal is unacceptable. Do SNP members want an average family of, for example, one of the invisible police officers and a nurse, who respectively earn £27,191 and £22,038 and who live in a band D house, to pay £428 extra a year? That is basically what the SNP is saying. Its argument in favour of its proposal is one of fairness. I listened with interest to John Swinburne, but he and the SNP fail to recognise that a high proportion of households—and 40 per cent of pensioner households—receive council tax benefit. The pensioner take-up of that benefit would be much higher if the Labour Government had not made the forms that must be completed more or less incomprehensible; people require a Philadelphia lawyer's skills to understand them.

John Swinburne (SSCUP, Central Scotland)

That would make the number of people who do not pay council tax much higher than the 60 per cent that I talked about. The number who pay, which is 40 per cent, would be lower, and more freeloading on those who pay would occur.

Bill Aitken (Conservative, Glasgow)

Pensioners who are not in acute poverty would certainly be very much worse off.

It is interesting that Fergus Ewing has left the chamber. If the SNP's proposal were implemented, what would be the result of the lost income from second homes in the Highlands? That has not been apparent. What would be the impact on affordable housing? People would be unable to afford homes.

I must refer to a point that Paul Martin made. David Cameron has no intention of apologising for the fact that, in their last years in office, Paul Martin's colleagues in Strathclyde Regional Council budgeted for a deficit. Neither David Cameron nor any Conservative MSP requires to apologise for the fact that Glasgow City Council implemented cash limits that Gordon Brown set in the Labour Government's first two years.

Frankly, the SNP's proposal is not workable. I have no doubt that it will be debated again.

Andrew Arbuckle (Liberal Democrat, Mid Scotland and Fife)

As the only member with current experience of local government, I know that councils are undergoing a major exercise to try to get the two ends of the 2006-07 budget to meet. The minister is correct to state that record levels of funding have gone into local government in the past six years. The year-on-year increase even in this year—in which there are issues about how councils will cope—is 3.2 per cent. It is important to point out that if the SNP's proposals were agreed to, there would be a 4.2 per cent rise in funding for local councils. So much for claims of SNP financial prudence.

Some people in local government and some members believe that councils were harshly dealt with in this year's Executive settlement, but many in the private sector would be quite happy with an above-inflation settlement. The next 24 months in local government will be extremely challenging. In that period, deals will be struck on equal pay so that years of inequality are cancelled out, and millions of pounds will be added to the expenditure side of local authority budgets.

We expect local authorities to come up with single-status agreements, which would not only insert long-needed fairness into employment, but would add big pressures on councils' budgets. The business cliché that such financial pressures will help to produce innovative solutions is appropriate. I know many people who work in local government who would like to be free of management shackles that may have been appropriate in the early years of the previous century.

In my council area, financial controls are tight and council tax collection rates are in the top bracket. Auditors have rightly praised Fife Council's financial control. However, there can still be improvement in some areas. We have, for example, little positive management of our physical assets. Last year, our balance sheet showed surplus assets of £30 million. Many local authorities face such situations.

I agree with five words of Tommy Sheridan's amendment. Too much has been spent on

"the use of expensive consultants".

That is a problem for a number of local authorities. With a tightening economic situation, it is likely that the exercise that is currently being carried out to set council tax levels will provide long-term benefits only if it introduces better and tighter management.

The SNP's proposals are wrong on a number of counts. Does the SNP mean to spread the additional cash among all local authorities? Some local authorities' plans for the coming year are now well progressed. If they receive additional cash now, should they revert to the status quo and divert themselves away from the radical thinking that now goes on in local authorities?

Proposals have been made in my area that could lead to different structures for some services and to questioning whether some inherited parts of council work are still appropriate and still needed in the first decade of the 21st century. Front-line services need not be affected, but radical changes behind the scenes are required.

Back in December, I spoke to a prominent member of an SNP council on the east coast. He admitted to me that the settlement was challenging and was causing major rethinks in his authority, but he believed that aims could be achieved without front-line services being affected. Where does that leave the SNP's motion?

Much of the pressure in today's debate has been directed at central Government's contribution to local authorities' funding.

Andrew Welsh (Scottish National Party, Angus)

Will the member taken an intervention?

Trish Godman (Labour, West Renfrewshire)

Any intervention should be brief because time is tight. The member is in his final minute.

Andrew Welsh (Scottish National Party, Angus)

I have never heard anybody more out of touch with local government than the member is. Any cash that is freed up will be diverted to save core services. That was the only reason for the council tax being increased. From personal experience in one of the most efficient councils, I know—

Trish Godman (Labour, West Renfrewshire)

You were supposed to make your intervention brief, Mr Welsh.

Andrew Arbuckle (Liberal Democrat, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Andrew Welsh claims proximity to local government, but I am still in local government and know what is happening.

In my final minute, I was going to point out that the council tax system is wrong and that it is time to consider a better local taxation system. In particular, the Liberal Democrats await the findings of the Burt committee, which I am sure will propose that a local income tax would meet most of the requirements for local taxation—namely, that such taxation should be fair and based on the ability to pay, and that there should be accountability and transparency. Therefore, we may look forward to a better system in the future. I am sure that the SNP will agree that the introduction of a local income tax would remove many of the current problems. I also hoped that it would have converted the Greens to its local income tax ideas after their festive love-in.

When he put forward his tax proposals, Tommy Sheridan questioned the Liberal Democrats' position.

Trish Godman (Labour, West Renfrewshire)

You must finish now, Mr Arbuckle.

Andrew Arbuckle (Liberal Democrat, Mid Scotland and Fife)

I want to respond to what Tommy Sheridan said. He went over the time that he was allowed.

Trish Godman (Labour, West Renfrewshire)

I would like you to finish now.

Andrew Arbuckle (Liberal Democrat, Mid Scotland and Fife)

I simply point out that Tommy Sheridan's proposed tax would involve no local accountability and would cost councils many millions of pounds.

Christine Grahame (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

I will confine my remarks to the unfairness of the council tax system and the benefits of a local income tax. What I will say follows on from what the member who spoke prior to me said.

It is trite but true to say that taxation should be fair and collectable, but council tax fails on both principles. Council tax is difficult to collect and is not based on the ability to pay. The elderly and the vulnerable—those on low pay—are most disadvantaged by the system. That is not only my view but the view of pensioners throughout Scotland and the view of Citizens Advice Scotland, which has said:

"Scotland's system of local government taxation causes significant hardship."

It has pointed out that bureaux in Scotland dealt with 14,000 new cases relating to council tax benefit last year and that a further 3,500 cases concerned council tax debt. We are talking about very vulnerable people.

As has been said, council tax has risen by 55 per cent since 1997. As John Swinburne rightly said, pensions have not kept pace with the increases. If we consider also rising fuel costs—people cannot restrict such costs, unless they sit in cold homes—we see that the vulnerable and poor are being squeezed. Although it is difficult for us to do anything about fuel costs, there is something that we can do: we can substitute a local income tax for the unjust council tax.

The council tax benefit system is a nightmare. Forget the complexities of the pension tax credit system, which I remember demonstrating in the chamber when I brought in a 68-page form and asked somebody to complete it during the debate. Doing so was impossible. The council tax benefit system is equally complex. I have looked at the Help the Aged website, which has pages on collecting council tax benefits. The website mentions the alternative maximum council tax benefit, which I had not even heard of. Working examples are given.

There are administration costs and costs in human lives. In fact, 48 per cent of pensioners who are entitled to claim council tax benefit do not claim it. One in four of those on low incomes does not claim it because the system is so nightmarish.

Michael McMahon (Labour, Hamilton North and Bellshill)

I agree that the council tax benefit system is overbureaucratic and difficult, but will the SNP tell us how it would fill the gap that would be left by the entire removal of that system from the economy with the introduction of a local income tax?

Christine Grahame (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

We would simply not need such a system because people would pay for their local services according to their ability to pay. Such a system would be clean and clear. Everybody would understand it. Nobody likes paying tax, but people understand income tax. Twelve of the countries in the European Union have a local income tax system. Such a system is already being used—there are models throughout Europe. I am thankful that the Liberal Democrats support such a reasonable system, which everybody understands. The Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business would support such a system.

Allan Wilson (Labour, Cunninghame North)

rose—

Christine Grahame (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

I want to make progress. I will let the minister in later if I have enough time to do so.

Other members have dealt with the figures, but what is happening on the ground? We all know what is happening. There are case studies in members' in-trays. There are cuts in the laudable care in the community programme. There are no social workers or district nurses to go out and there is no support. Aids and adaptations are delayed because there is no local authority funding to provide them. The knock-on effect is that people stay in hospital. They are assessed for discharge but cannot come out of hospital because the support system does not exist because there is no money for it. They are institutionalised, they decline and they are reassessed. There is a mess that need not exist and that would not exist if there was appropriate funding. Members have laudable principles relating to care in the community and to residential homes for people who need to be fully supported, but there is not enough money for such homes and they are therefore closing.

I will take a simple example from the Borders: shopping. People used to have somebody to take them out to do their shopping once a week or to get their shopping for them, but such services have been cut in order to save peanuts. That is what local authorities are doing. They are impinging on people's human dignity and independence at a basic level.

There is not even enough funding to allow schools to meet the presumption that children with special needs will be educated in mainstream schooling. Small rural schools are closing in order to save money and so that the properties can be sold off.

Those are the cases in my in-tray. The elderly, people on low incomes and the disadvantaged, who have to pay council tax although they cannot afford to do so, are the very people whose services are being cut. They are also the very people who cannot afford to pay for their fuel and are sitting in cold homes. Yet the deputy minister stands there and defends the council tax system. He defends cuts at the basic level. He should be ashamed of himself, but I have a feeling that he will not be in the job for much longer.

Charlie Gordon (Labour, Glasgow Cathcart)

To a greater or lesser extent, each of the Opposition parties in the debate claims that it wants enough money for local councils, partially or wholly funded by a new and more popular type of local taxation. I have news for them: there is never enough money and people never like paying taxes. Those are just two of the lessons that I have learned during years of trying to make sense of the byzantine complexity of local government finance.

For me, the learning curve has been steep and long. Alas, like some here I could mention, I cannot claim to have run away from the circus as a boy to join a firm of chartered accountants. On being elected to Strathclyde Regional Council in 1987, I found finance dry and boring. I found service issues such as transport and education to be sexier. When I became Strathclyde's transport convener in 1994, it was quite a shock to have to fight to retain my £0.5 billion budget in a tough, competitive, corporate budget round. The first lesson that I learned was that all services, sexy or otherwise, have to be paid for from a balanced budget.

However, I suspect that most politicians do not like to talk about finance. Many do not like to think about it and too many still do not understand it. I know that I did not feel confident in 1997 as deputy leader of Glasgow City Council, when my leader, Frank McAveety, asked me to take control of Glasgow's £2 billion budget. I sent for the director of finance—the legendary Jimmy Andrews, who gave 50 years of service to Glasgow. I pointed at a pile of budget papers on my desk that was too heavy to lift and I asked a technical question: "Jimmy, what's the answer to this dead hard sum?" "What answer would you like, councillor?" he replied. I felt a great weight lift from my shoulders. I was not alone. Budgeting was not a science, but an art. That was another lesson learned.

Years ago in the United States of America, a persistent bank robber was serving his last and longest jail term when he was visited by a young sociologist—I see that Des McNulty has left, which is a pity because he is a sociologist—for a research interview. The first question was, "Why do you rob banks?" The answer came, "Because that is where the money is." Behind such obscure jargon as aggregate external finance and revenue support grant, it is all about money. That is a fact for me and every other member, for councils, for the Executive and for the Government. If we had more money, we could do more things with it. If the money is under the control of elected councillors, they are directly accountable to their electorate for the services they specify and the taxes that they levy.

John Swinney's motion calls for the national taxpayers of Scotland to give an extra £93.2 million to local councils on the condition that there is a real-terms freeze in council tax. Let us leave to one side the plain fact that to the man on the Sauchiehall Street omnibus, a council tax freeze means a zero increase, which the SNP's obfuscation would not deliver. Let us explore the SNP's condition or, as it is called in the jargon, ring fencing. Imposing that condition is wrong in practice because it removes the choices that having more money could bring to councils. It is also wrong in principle because it usurps the role of elected councillors. Perhaps John Swinney is a centraliser by inclination; it is a species that is represented in every part of the chamber after all. If so, I wonder what he would do if councillors used the cash for other things and ignored his condition. Would he make the cap fit, so to speak?

In 1996, the Tories' botched reorganisation of local government removed £400 million from Scotland and £50 million from Glasgow. In the three years after that, Glasgow's council tax rose by 50.5 per cent but, in the seven subsequent budgets, there were no above-inflation increases. Glasgow's gross tax increase in the past five years has been 10.9 per cent against a Scottish average of 23.5 per cent.

The SNP has a brass neck today because it has resisted every one of Glasgow's attempts to reform the local finance system.

Time is short in the debate, so this speech will have to be foreshortened. Obviously, the Burt committee has its work cut out. We need reform not abolition of the council tax. Also, if we reform the grant system, we had better remember that it is a zero-sum game and there will be winners and losers. Burt and his colleagues have much straining to do; let us hope that their straining produces more than a mouse.

Carolyn Leckie (SSP, Central Scotland)

We have certainly heard a lot of talk about efficiency today. The people to whom we should look for lessons on being efficient are local authority workers, who go above and beyond every single day. They certainly work beyond the salaries that they receive. If we need to learn any lessons on efficiency, we should look to them; the Government does not make it easy for them.

George Lyon talks about efficiency but, as Fergus Ewing pointed out, he cannot even produce the figures to tell us where the money has gone that local authorities have saved through those efficiencies. Paul Martin lectures us about efficiency, but he sticks up for the private finance initiative, which is the most inefficient way on the planet of financing anything. It is not PFI or public-private partnership—or whatever euphemism we want to use—that people support. People support schools, but they do not support the long-term consequences for future generations and the cuts in services that PPP and PFI indubitably lead to.

I will concentrate on equal pay. The Deputy Minister for Communities, Johann Lamont, has described the failure of employers to implement equal pay as inefficient. That means that the local government finance settlement is inefficient and the Executive's response to resolving the problem of equal pay is inefficient. This is a moral question not just a financial one. There should be no need for any choices to have to be made about women's right to equal pay, which was long fought for and has been enshrined in legislation for almost 40 years. There should not be a choice between jobs and services and the cutting or freezing of council tax. That is an immoral choice that is being forced on councils by the Executive's failure to put its money where its mouth is. It talks about equal pay, but it does not deliver the money.

That is why we have to consider the whole system of local authority taxation and why we need the Executive to look at the legacy of the failure to implement equal pay. The Executive is quite happy to set aside a slush fund, which is exactly what is sitting there in Westminster. It talks about releasing some of that money in 2007 and 2008. Could that be anything to do with a Scottish Parliament election in 2007? That is a cynical manipulation of money when the consequences of the failure to implement equal pay are hitting our local authorities and communities now. This is not an abstract discussion.

At the moment, Glasgow City Council is consulting on redundancies and cuts in core services that make a difference to people's lives. Falkirk Council is considering charging for special uplift for refuse collection and it is preparing to cut emergency home care. The cuts in Glasgow involve the closure of at least two children's homes and a home for the elderly, cuts to home support services as well as swingeing cuts in the education budget. This is not abstract; it is real and it is happening now. The Executive should hang its head in shame because it is prepared to save up money for an election and put political expediency ahead of saving services and jobs and delivering on equal pay.

We should look at the Executive's commitment to equal pay. I believe that Malcolm Chisholm, the Minister for Communities, is committed to achieving equal pay. However, the £150,000 that has been spent on the close the gap initiative between 2001 and 2005 is absolutely nothing—it is a spit in the puddle in comparison with the money that is needed to deliver equal pay and to compensate women for subsidising public services for years through their low pay. It is estimated that it may cost up to £700 million to plug the gap of the pay that women have not received. That is not silly money and this is not an abstract discussion—it is very real.

Is the Executive prepared to say to local authorities that it will back them up? It says that it is prepared to meet local authorities to discuss the issue. It is ignorant of the Deputy Minister for Finance, Public Service Reform and Parliamentary Business—the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform is not even here—to carry on a discussion when I am putting direct questions to him, to which I hope he will be able to respond in his speech. The deputy minister says that he will consider approaches from COSLA, but how much money will be made available? Will he force local authorities to choose between the principle of equal pay, jobs and services and the level of council tax? Why does he not act now, before redundancies and cuts in service plans by Glasgow City Council, for example, proceed? It is right that he should do so. Why does he not put what is right ahead of what he considers to be in his political interest? Is it not the case that the deputy minister is happy with the perks of achieving ministerial status but is not prepared to take responsibility or to put his money where his mouth is in order to achieve equal pay?

I want to refer to the SNP motion, because this is a serious discussion. It is estimated that £700 million will be needed to achieve justice for the underpayment of women over many years. If they take equal pay claims to employment tribunals—which they are entitled to do—their cases are almost 100 per cent watertight. Would the SNP fund a settlement? How does the SNP propose that equal pay be paid for and delivered? The motion refers only to the Finance Committee's recommendations for plugging the gap, which do not plug the gap on equal pay. Would the SNP deliver equal pay?

I ask members to support our amendment. Not to support it is to agree with and to perpetuate inequality for women.

Murray Tosh (Conservative, West of Scotland)

We are considerably behind the clock. I ask members to keep within the time limits.

Patrick Harvie (Green, Glasgow)

Mark Ballard's opening speech reflected on the dual nature of the debate. There is a debate about the current settlement and the circumstances in which local government finds itself. There is also a debate about the longer-term future of local government finance.

I will try to address my remarks to both crucial issues. I begin by acknowledging the impressive performance of John Swinney in his opening speech, in which he urged the Executive to seize the opportunity to address both issues. Not only did he highlight the current situation and the possibility of substantial council tax increases in the short term, but he argued clearly and strongly for replacement of the council tax. Mr Swinney's exchange with George Lyon was an absolute joy to behold. Some observers may have been taken aback by some of Mr Lyon's attempts at verbal gymnastics, even if he wobbled off the mat once or twice, but Mr Swinney cut through that and exposed clearly the inadequacy of the list of could-haves and might-have-beens that we heard.

As a stranger to finance debates in the chamber, I am happy to admit freely that the blizzard of statistics one way and the other holds little attraction for me. However, there have been moments of clarity between those exchanges. It seems clear that, over recent years, more resources have been made available to local authorities, but that those have not been sufficient to take account of the dramatic rise in the number of duties and the increased workload that we are placing on local authorities. They are also not enough to prevent the dramatic rises in council tax that many members anticipate.

David Davidson's remarks were largely a defence of the council tax system, which he would like to continue, albeit with a few tweaks. However, many members have addressed the substantial injustice that is associated with the existing system. Tommy Sheridan spoke about the constraints on local authorities—not only the new duties that they must carry out but the pressure to make cuts and efficiency savings, to restrain council tax and to use systems such as the dire PPP funding arrangements. I have no doubt that, in the long run, PPP will be judged a wildly expensive folly. It is very sad that the Executive remains wedded to it.

Fergus Ewing's contribution was entertaining. He quoted from a range of sources such as Ira Gershwin, Deep Throat and Anne Robinson. However, he used his quotes from Mr Lyon most effectively. He made clear, as Mr Swinney did, that a could-have-been—even a should-have-been—is not enough to satisfy us that money saved through efficiency savings has been available to local authority budgets and has been spent on more and better services.

Bristow Muldoon devoted many of his remarks to the virtues of efficiency. On one level, I agree with his repeated assertion that there is no organisation in the world that cannot improve what it does and the way in which it does that by becoming more efficient and saving money. However, he acknowledged implicitly that the reality will involve some cuts in services. When he said that efficiency saving is not all about cuts, he sounded a little defensive.

Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrat, Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale)

Will the member get round to commenting on his colleague's amendment and Green party policy? If he does so, will he be able to tell the chamber whether some of the poorest people in my constituency—tenant farmers in the valleys, who would be penalised by a system of land value taxation—would be excluded from that system or whether they would be taxed on both their properties and the land on which they work?

Patrick Harvie (Green, Glasgow)

I do not have time to provide a full explanation, but I will come on to Mark Ballard's speech and LVT in a moment.

Andrew Arbuckle suggested that the dialogue between the SNP and the Greens—which at this stage I would call enjoyable flirting rather than a full-blown "love-in"—might have led to our adopting the SNP's policy, but I draw his attention to Alex Neil's very favourable remarks on LVT in the chamber yesterday. I also draw Andrew Arbuckle's attention to his colleague Donald Gorrie's recent pamphlet on planning, which endorsed LVT. I suggest that the marriage bed of Labour and the Liberal Democrats may be experiencing something of a seven-year itch and that Andrew Arbuckle should not throw around terms such as "love-in" at this point.

Finally, I turn to Mark Ballard's speech. There are good reasons for continuing to tax wealth, not just income. Land cannot be taken abroad and land value tax cannot be avoided. However, there are mechanisms that we can introduce to ensure that that happens in a socially just way that does not impose unfair burdens on those who are least able to pay. I encourage Andrew Arbuckle to speak to the many Liberal Democrats who still accept that position.

Michael McMahon (Labour, Hamilton North and Bellshill)

A few weeks ago, I was discussing the issue of the council tax with a pensioners group in my constituency. As I expected, clear problems with the current system were highlighted. However, what amazed me was one of the answers that I received when I asked what members of the group thought should be done to address those problems and what better system could be introduced to replace the council tax. One pensioner proclaimed loudly that he favoured the poll tax. I was stunned by that and asked him why. He said that he favoured the poll tax because it had been abolished.

We would all like to pay our taxes with a smile but, unfortunately, we have to pay them with cash. No one likes to pay taxes, but everyone knows that they are a necessary evil. For that reason, politicians should never attempt to con the public into believing that they have a simple solution to the problems of taxation. Crude slogans such as "axe the tax" merely hide the reality of what is proposed—that one unpopular system should be replaced with another. It ill behoves the Scottish Socialist Party to lecture anyone on coming up with money for local authorities to fund equal pay legislation. SSP members are the people who said, "Don't pay your taxes. Don't give local authorities the money that they need to meet their expenses." The SSP created a culture of non-payment that has produced a black hole of £1.2 billion, which would easily meet the bills for which those members ask.

Tommy Sheridan (SSP, Glasgow)

From the SSP point of view, the non-payment of poll tax was 100 per cent correct. Does the member agree that overpaid politicians such as he and I should pay more for local services so that low-paid workers and pensioners pay less?

Michael McMahon (Labour, Hamilton North and Bellshill)

Tommy Sheridan is wrong on the first point and right on the second.

The SNP has said nothing this morning about having a coherent solution for local government taxation, although it evidently admires the problem. SNP members spent little time attempting to outline tax reform and they have not suggested a single coherent proposal for spending reform.

No one in the debate has attempted to hide the fact that there are concerns about local government finance. However, it is not enough for SNP members to say that more money should be found without saying where it would come from; to say that efficiency savings are good things without offering an incentive to produce them; or to say that local income tax should replace the council tax without explaining why they would turn a loophole into a noose.

According to its own figures, the SNP proposals are to increase income tax by 4.3p in the pound. I doubt whether that would be the true level of increase because of the increased bureaucracy involved and I have no doubt that its proposals would hit ordinary working families the hardest. Will SNP members tell ordinary working people what the true cost would be? In the 18-minute speech that Mr Swinney made, he spent less than one minute speaking about that. If his party makes a proposal of such magnitude, that is not good enough.

Why does Mr Swinney not tell double-income families that they would be the biggest losers? Why does he not tell nurses in training and students who supplement their income that they would lose out if they went over the threshold? Why does he not tell single people living alone that they would lose their current discount?

The fact is that the proposed local income tax would be more complex and expensive to collect than the current council tax and it would be less stable than property-based tax because the yield from income tax is less predictable. Income tax is paid by only about 60 per cent of people, so almost one third of adults would make no direct payment towards the cost of local services.

The SNP and others do not want to axe the tax; they want to extend the tax and introduce punitive levels of local income tax. Far from offering tax cuts, the net effect of an income-related change is that those on average incomes would pay more. Two individuals who earn average incomes would be unaffected but, if they lived together, their combined income would be well above the threshold laid down by the SNP, and indeed that proposed by the Liberals. Therefore, it is true to say that hard-working families would pay more under that scheme.

What about the SNP's proposed freeze on council tax? That would result in £89 million of lost income for local authorities this year alone. Continuing that freeze would cost a further £141 million and £196 million respectively in the following two years, totalling £426 million over the three years of the spending review period without any commitment from the SNP that it would deliver on services. Who would cover that shortfall, or does the SNP even realise that it is arguing for cuts in services elsewhere? We are left to assume that a freeze on council tax would shift the burden of funding local services from council tax payers to general taxpayers to cover that shortfall. The Executive would have to cover the shortfall and that would mean cuts to health, education and transport. It does not matter how the SNP dresses it up, the money has to be taken from somewhere to be given to local authorities.

The council tax can be redesigned to be fairer and more representative. We need to and can have a fairer council tax banding system that is more representative of house values in Scotland and we need to extend the range of upper council tax bands in particular.

The SNP's proposals would do nothing for local authorities. They would do nothing to aid the drive for efficiency and they would mislead taxpayers about the way forward. For those reasons, they do not deserve the support of the Parliament today.

Derek Brownlee (Conservative, South of Scotland)

We have heard many interesting points today. We should all bear in mind the comments from many Labour members about the unpopularity of any system of local government finance.

As we have heard, the level of council tax in Scotland has increased by 55 per cent since 1997. However, that masks the huge range in increases throughout the country and many areas have suffered much more significant increases than the headline figure would suggest.

The problem is the level of council tax, which is a huge concern to people throughout the country, and there is no sign of improvement. The SNP motion talks about a "real-terms freeze". That would only contain the problem, not solve it, yet that proposal is being portrayed as ambitious. We need to be realistic and to get a grip on the overall level of council tax.

Ministers cannot pretend that the problem has nothing to do with them. As long as the Executive provides more than 80 per cent of councils' finances, it will have a huge impact on the level of council tax that is set.

The Executive amendment talks about

"record levels of finance provided to local government".

That is correct. However, to match the record levels of finance and council tax, we also have record levels of spending. That the Executive has increased its absolute level of funding is almost irrelevant, because of the additional commitments that are being loaded on to councils. Unless the Executive can tell us how much those burdens are for each council we will not have proper accountability. Council tax payers in individual areas do not know whether council tax rises are due to inefficient councils, the Executive squeezing councils or because new services are provided or mandated. Knowing that is crucial.

Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrat, Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale)

Will the member clarify whether it is the position of the Conservatives that overall public spending in Scotland should be reduced in total? That is what every Conservative spokesman says when they stand up in this chamber. If that is the case, there would be a reduction in both central and local services.

Derek Brownlee (Conservative, South of Scotland)

I notice that the member did not refer to the reduction in Executive support for the supporting people fund, which hits local councils, including that in his constituency. We will address the level of proposed public spending in Scotland during the election, as will all parties, including the member's own.

There is nothing inherently wrong with councils being forced to provide services by the Executive, if they are fully resourced. However, local accountability is an important concern. We have to be clear about the role of local government and whether people expect it to be merely the local agent of the Executive, or to provide a genuinely local service.

John Swinney made the valid point that we should be wary of placing too much weight on either the Executive's or COSLA's figures for local government. Unsurprisingly, he commended the Finance Committee's report. Unsurprisingly, as a fellow member of that committee, I agree with that.

The minister said that he does not necessarily accept the figures in the Finance Committee's report. The £85 million shortfall is based on only four figures in the table in paragraph 85 of the report. Perhaps the minister will tell us which of the figures he does not accept? There are only four of them that he has to get his head round. Does he not accept the Executive's figure of £178 million for new spending? Does he not accept the Executive's figure of £38.7 million for aggregate external finance? Does he not accept the Executive's figure for efficiency savings or its figure for inflation? If he accepts all those, he cannot possibly dispute the Finance Committee's report. Perhaps he will tell us. Or Mr Swinney will tell us.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

In the absence of an intervention from the minister to correct Mr Brownlee—I have no wish to correct him—I will answer one of the minister's earlier questions. He could not understand how we calculated that a 6.6 per cent increase in council tax was required. If we add £84.9 million to the £52 million that the Government expects to raise from a 2.5 per cent increase in council tax, Mr Brownlee will not be surprised to realise that that total equates to 6.6 per cent.

Derek Brownlee (Conservative, South of Scotland)

And he is not even a deputy minister. I thank Mr Swinney for his explanation.

The minister seemed to suggest that if councils were feeling under pressure they should borrow more money or raid their reserves. Perhaps he will tell us the appropriate share of council spending that that reserve should form for every council. Perhaps he will give us some guidance on what his proposals might be to mandate an adequate level of reserve, because that is another vital part of the financial settlement.

I am sure that everyone here welcomes efficiency in local government. The minister talks about improving collection rates for the council tax, and those rates could indeed be improved, but the pattern is not the same in all council areas. To assume that all councils can make the same improvement would be naive; some councils have a lot more scope for improvement than others—and we are all aware of the councils that are performing poorly.

We have heard about some alternatives to the council tax but we will not be supporting the SNP on local income tax. That will come as no great surprise to anyone. We have real concerns about the burdens that a local income tax could place not only on taxpayers but on employers. We will not support that, although we support much of what Mr Swinney said.

Murray Tosh (Conservative, West of Scotland)

I call George Lyon to close for the Executive. Minister, I can give you only six minutes.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

We have had an extensive debate with informed and considered speeches on this important subject. I do not doubt that there are concerns on all sides of the chamber about the level of funding that is available to local government. We want excellence in our public services and, to achieve that, we have invested record amounts in local government to ensure that we can deliver excellent services throughout Scotland. We remain committed to further improvements in public services delivered by local government.

Local government is now spending almost £17 billion each year and, by the end of the current spending review period in 2007-08, core funding from the Executive will have increased by more than £3 billion. That is up by almost 55 per cent on the figure for 1999-2000. There can be no doubt that local government has experienced an unprecedented rise in funding since this devolved Government came to power in 1999. As Mr Swinney pointed out, that is in stark contrast to the year-on-year cuts that local government experienced in the 1990s under the Tory Government. We want to ensure that local government spends its resources to greatest effect. That aim underlies our best-value reforms and our efficient government programme, as well as the further reforms that we are developing to modernise the public sector as a whole.

Some have argued that local government is being asked to make a disproportionate contribution to our efficient government programme. However, although local government accounts for more than a third of the total Scottish Executive spend, it has been asked to make less than a quarter of our efficiency savings. Local government is not only on track to meet our targets for this year but is likely to go substantially beyond them—as is highlighted in the report from the local government improvement service. That report is endorsed by the Institute of Public Finance and it uses statistical methods to provide a robust estimate of total efficiency savings. That is very important.

John Swinney (Scottish National Party, North Tayside)

I notice that the report from the local government improvement service is not endorsed by Audit Scotland, which is the statutory body with responsibility for guaranteeing these points. On further reading of the executive summary this morning, I noticed that the report says that many councils are looking for efficiencies in order to close funding gaps and not in order to reinvest in front-line services. Does that not reinforce the point that we have been making, and does it not contradict the Government's argument that its initiatives invest in front-line services?

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

I do not think that it does. Our initiatives free up resources. If Mr Swinney reads the report in detail he will see the huge range of achievements of individual councils. As they implement the reform agenda, I believe that they will free up not only the resources that have already been identified but further resources too. We will get full reports from every council.

Let me turn briefly to some of the issues raised this morning. Mr Davidson seemed to believe that the Parliament should be responsible for wheelie bins, and it was a bit rich for the Conservatives to criticise the Executive for underfunding local councils, given the contribution of his party's Government to the underfunding of councils while it was in power.

Paul Martin made a very important point: five new schools have been built under public-private partnerships in his constituency, and no parent, teacher or constituent has come to Paul to complain about the new schools. They certainly do not want to go back to the old school system. PPP is delivering substantial improvements to public services throughout Scotland.

Tommy Sheridan (SSP, Glasgow)

Will the minister take an intervention on that point?

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

I want to make some progress because we are short of time.

I turn to the SNP motion. After endless years of making spending pledges, the SNP has decided that it did not mean them and would prefer tax cuts. Perhaps that is because Mr Swinney has become the party's finance spokesman. The real gap that we should discuss is the credibility gap in the SNP's promises. Adam Ingram promised £1 billion for child care; Tricia Marwick promised extra police; and Kenny MacAskill promised a special ring-fenced fund for road maintenance. They were the last of the big spenders; all those promises have been forgotten.

The SNP wants a council tax freeze instead. Its motion says that the provision of extra money would be on condition that councils limit council tax rises. That opens up a dramatic new policy for the SNP, does it not? As Charlie Gordon rightly pointed out, the SNP will adopt centralised and nationalised control of council tax. Agreeing to the SNP's motion would disfranchise the 1,200 local councillors who decide the levels of council tax in their areas. By giving money to the councils that are proposing the highest tax increases, the SNP would punish the prudent. The SNP is proposing the sort of authoritarian national control that we last saw under the Conservatives in the 1980s and 1990s. Even the Tories have abandoned that policy.

In conclusion, we are providing record funding to local government—a fact that everyone recognises. However, we recognise the pressures that councils face. We said to COSLA last year that if councils delivered on the targets that we set them, we would consider what more might be provided for the 2007-08 financial year. That is still our position. The Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform is in on-going discussions with COSLA on that very issue, and he intends to meet COSLA again in the near future. The accusation that this devolved Government is failing to support councils does not stand up to scrutiny, given the record sums of money that we have made available to them.

The SNP motion asks us to centralise and nationalise council tax decisions, thereby undermining the role of locally elected councillors and punishing prudent councils. We reject that approach and I call on Parliament to do the same by supporting the amendment in my name.

Alasdair Morgan (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

I agree with Charlie Gordon: people do not like paying taxes. But what they like even less—and with good reason—is paying a tax that increases by 55 per cent over eight years when inflation increased by only 13 per cent.

The Executive would have us believe that the problem is nothing to do with the council tax—or with the Executive, for that matter—but is all down to the local authorities. The Executive says that local authorities have proved that they can save money and are now just scaremongering and that if local authorities do not succeed it is because they are not trying hard enough.

We are asked to suspend our disbelief and to ignore the lessons of the past few years—or the lessons of as many years as we care to go back. This year, apparently, is going to be different. This year the council tax rise will not be much greater than inflation. Services will not be cut, they will just be delivered more efficiently. So, let us just ignore what the all-party Finance Committee of the Parliament says; let us ignore what COSLA says; and let us ignore what every local authority in the country says, whether it is run by Labour, the SNP, the independents, the Liberals or even the Tories. There is a local authority that is being run by the Tories, for a short while. The message from everyone is the same, and it is a lesson that comes from the experience of all council tax payers: the council tax will go up by more than inflation this year and, into the bargain, services will suffer.

As John Swinney said, successive burdens have been placed on councils as a result of primary or secondary legislation from this Parliament and elsewhere. One has only to look at the financial memorandums that come to the Finance Committee to see that the new burdens are not fully funded.

Revaluation and rebanding have been mentioned several times in the debate; they are part of Labour's submission to the current review and David Davidson for the Tories said that they were needed. They are presented as a way of solving the problems with council tax. With the council tax, revaluations are logically necessary.

For example, we cannot keep on—as we do just now—valuing new houses at what they would have been worth had they been built in 1991. However, revaluation and rebanding could be of assistance to people who are hard pressed—and we agree that many people are—only if there were a strong link between the value of their property and their ability to pay the tax. The hard fact is that there is not necessarily a sufficient connection between the two.

I am sorry that Michael McMahon did not get a chance to tell us how the revaluation and rebanding that he proposes would exempt the hard-working families that he is so concerned about. In fact, revaluation may exacerbate unfairness if the current value of a house bears no relation to a person's ability to pay. The changes in property values that lead to a revaluation have absolutely nothing to do with a person's income level, particularly if they have been living in a property for some time.

Tommy Sheridan (SSP, Glasgow)

Does Alasdair Morgan agree that revaluation in Wales created more losers than winners? Perhaps that is why Michael McMahon did not spend much time explaining his proposals.

Alasdair Morgan (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

Twenty-five per cent of properties in Wales went up by one band and five per cent went up by two bands. The message of that exercise is that it would be very sensible not to live on a fixed income, not to live on an income that increases only by inflation and not to continue to live in one's family home if it happens to be in an area in which house prices are increasing by more than the average. The message is that it would be a good idea to sell up and move to a smaller house in an area in which house prices are lower. The message to pensioners is, "We are sorry if you have come to like the family home that you have lived in all your life and which you have spent your money furnishing and decorating, but continuing to live there does not fit in with the Government's view of how local government finance should work. You'd better move on." I turn to the Executive—

Jeremy Purvis (Liberal Democrat, Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale)

rose—

Alasdair Morgan (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

I am sorry, Mr Purvis, but I cannot take your intervention.

I turn to the Executive amendment, which has two parts. The first part trots out—as the minister did in his opening speech—the usual figures on how much the Executive is spending and how much it is saving. However, it is not really saving money; it is just spending it somewhere else. The Executive ignores the problem of the levels of council tax, which is a problem that everyone seems to recognise, including the chancellor—when electoral calculations loom before him. It was interesting to hear the minister say that the 2007-08 settlement for local authorities will be revisited. It has not escaped anyone's attention that next year is an election year. Everyone in the chamber knows that, some time in the next year, the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform will say to the chamber, "The local authorities have done very well on the efficiency front, so I have managed to find some extra money for them to make next year's council tax rise acceptable." That decision will not be driven by the precise measurement, or any measurement, of efficiency—Mr Lyon is the expert on that—it will be driven by political expediency.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

Will Alasdair Morgan clarify how much of the figures in the SNP motion he intends to hand out in year 1?

Alasdair Morgan (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

The figures in our motion are the year 1 figures. I wish that George Lyon had read the motion—although perhaps he should read his own documents first, as he clearly does not understand them either.

I will speak briefly about the other amendments. I was very interested in the Conservatives' amendment because, as far as I can see, it failed to address the problem, which is the structure of the council tax. Perhaps they intend to visit on us the solution that their former colleague, Mr Monteith, puts forward in a magazine that arrived on my desk today—a sales tax. Perhaps that was a secret weapon that they were going to release on us later, had Mr Monteith not blown the gaff.

It is now time for action. We cannot continue to postpone decisions on these matters. The Liberal Democrats do not believe in the council tax, so they should stop using the excuse of a review that will report at some time and which might be decided on at some time and which might result in something happening at some time. If they believe that, they might believe that pigs can fly. They should stop using that excuse to paper over the cracks in the coalition. Surely this is one subject on which even the Liberals cannot face in two directions at the same time.

I say to the Labour Party that if Gordon Brown thought that the council tax was a problem in England last year, the same logic means that it is a problem in Scotland this year. People have real problems paying for council services and with the level of service that they receive. Our motion offers a solution to those problems, and I urge the chamber to support it.

Question Time — Scottish Executive — General Questions

Patrick Harvie (Green, Glasgow)

To ask the Scottish Executive what action it is taking to ensure that individual citizens can access specialist advice regarding their human rights. (S2O-8653)

Robert Brown (Liberal Democrat, Glasgow)

Parliament is currently considering legislation that was introduced by the Executive to create a Scottish commissioner for human rights. Although the commissioner will not be empowered to investigate individual cases under the proposals, he or she will be able to provide independent advice and guidance on human rights to any person or organisation. The commissioner will also have the power to investigate and report on generic or sectoral human rights issues.

Patrick Harvie (Green, Glasgow)

I commend the Executive for its proposals to create a commissioner for human rights. However, given that the commissioner will not—as the deputy minister made clear—be able to undertake individual casework, and that the Scottish Human Rights Centre, which provided at least a limited service in that area, has had to close, will the Executive undertake to examine other options for funding organisations that take on the important work of human rights advice?

Robert Brown (Liberal Democrat, Glasgow)

I am more than happy to talk to Patrick Harvie about the details of the issue in his capacity as convener of the cross-party group in the Scottish Parliament on human rights. I very much regret the closure of the Scottish Human Rights Centre; it did extremely valuable work over several years. Unfortunately it was, for financial reasons, unable to continue its work.

However, the Executive gives support in a variety of directions to individual cases; for instance, it gives advice and support on immigration, and its legal aid role supports existing legal services. There are also a number of experiments in in-house court pilot projects to support people.

The Executive is involved in a range of human rights advice activities and is more than happy to consider what can be done to supplement those activities, although the Executive's support would be for the broader legal service rather than for individual cases.

Brian Adam (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen North)

Can the minister reassure Parliament that the legal advice that is available on human rights will be available in all parts of Scotland and not just, as is the case at present, substantially in law centres in the central belt? Some of my constituents have had difficulty in accessing human rights advice.

Robert Brown (Liberal Democrat, Glasgow)

Solicitors across Scotland provide legal advice, so there should not be too much difficulty generally in getting advice from them. I accept that there are issues concerning the human rights specialism that is available in some parts of the country. Nevertheless, it should be possible to plug into legal firms, and the bar has expertise in that area.

There is potential for looking more broadly at those matters, and the debate on the forthcoming legal assistance bill, which is to be introduced in February and which my colleague Cathy Jamieson can talk about more substantially, will look at how reforms of publicly funded legal assistance across the country can be made more accessible. The justice committees will have an opportunity to consider those matters in the context of the proposed legal assistance bill.

George Reid (None, Ochil)

In relation to question 2, I remind members that they should not ask questions that impact on issues that are currently before the courts.

Alex Neil (Scottish National Party, Central Scotland)

I thank the Presiding Officer for that warning; I shall, of course, heed it.

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will make a statement on the introduction of new fingerprint procedures, as reported in The Herald on 4 January 2006. (S2O-8616)

Cathy Jamieson (Labour, Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley)

The Scottish fingerprint service and the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland are planning for the introduction of a non-numeric standard for fingerprint evidence. No decision has yet been made on timing.

Alex Neil (Scottish National Party, Central Scotland)

Why has there been such a delay in introducing the new fingerprinting service and identification system? Is it because of the shambles in the fingerprinting bureau of the Scottish Criminal Record Office? Will the minister, with the introduction of the new procedures, overhaul that bureau and end the shambles that has existed there for five or six years?

Cathy Jamieson (Labour, Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley)

I do not accept that nothing has been done to deal with some of the problems that have been evident in the fingerprint bureau. It is not helpful consistently to call the bureau a "shambles", as Mr Neil does. It is not helpful to the staff who do their best to provide information that allows the administration of justice in our courts.

However, it is important that the Lord Advocate be satisfied that the fingerprint evidence that will be presented using the new standard will be appropriate before he approves the continuation of such procedures. It is also the case that staff in the fingerprint service need to be fully trained. There is no undue delay; it is simply a case of ensuring that the correct procedures are in place.

Donald Gorrie (Liberal Democrat, Central Scotland)

To ask the Scottish Executive what proposals it has to enable the organisations previously helped by the Scottish Civic Forum to continue to take an active part in the work of civic Scotland and the Parliament. (S2O-8683)

Margaret Curran (Labour, Glasgow Baillieston)

The Executive is fully committed to encouraging individuals, organisations and interest groups to take an active interest in civic Scotland and the work of Parliament. We are currently considering how we might generate greater interest in civic participation. I will make proposals shortly.

Donald Gorrie (Liberal Democrat, Central Scotland)

Many large voluntary and charitable organisations and commercial organisations are skilled at lobbying Parliament and they are staffed and geared up to do that. Whatever reasons the Executive had for disliking the Scottish Civic Forum in the past, it was an important vehicle for enabling smaller community-based organisations and other organisations to contact Parliament or the Executive, and its removal leaves a gap. What, in addition to what the minister has just said, will the Executive do to help to fill that gap?

Margaret Curran (Labour, Glasgow Baillieston)

I reassure Donald Gorrie that we have paid some attention to that matter and that we are considering detailed work on it. I make it clear at the outset that I am responsible for the Executive's work on civic participation. Parliament itself has a role in participation, and it is the Presiding Officer's responsibility to ensure that Parliament opens itself up to participation as much as possible. I want to ensure that the Executive does that, too.

I accept Donald Gorrie's point that many large organisations have sophisticated approaches to gaining access to people of influence—I assume that that includes Parliament and the Executive—but we need to ensure that we reach beyond those and the other usual suspects who are well versed in participating in Parliament's work. I am very keen to do that, which is why we are spending time ensuring that we get right our participation strategies. I am particularly keen to ensure that we reach out to young people, to people who do not traditionally participate and to people from different ethnic minorities. It is vital that we do that.

I am happy to talk to Donald Gorrie about that work and to keep him briefed on the work that we are about to announce shortly.

Mary Mulligan (Labour, Linlithgow)

To ask the Scottish Executive whether the resources being made available for class-size reductions are being top-sliced and, if so, why. (S2O-8645)

Peter Peacock (Labour, Highlands and Islands)

Funding for new teachers is not being top sliced. The sums are fully additional to the spending review figures that were announced for local authorities in autumn 2004 and are being distributed through the national priorities action fund in addition to current allocations.

Mary Mulligan (Labour, Linlithgow)

I am pleased to hear the minister's answer and I hope that he will ensure that local authorities are fully aware that resources for extra teachers will be allocated according to the need that is generated by increasing numbers of pupils. However, will the minister go further and agree that additional resources for the few authorities that have increasing pupil populations must be made available timeously if those local authorities and their schools are to hit the class-size reduction targets?

Peter Peacock (Labour, Highlands and Islands)

Mary Mulligan and I have discussed before in Parliament the fact that an area's school pupil roll is growing means that its grant will grow in due course, but there is a short time lag between the growth in population and the grant's arrival. However, we are making extra money available to local authorities for extra teachers now; it is being distributed on the basis of grant-aided expenditure with an extra element for deprivation and a small element for sparsity of population to help to ensure that we have the right distribution of cash. That cash is available now and it will help in West Lothian, for example, to recruit more than 40 extra teachers in the near future. That is very good news for the young people of that area.

Fiona Hyslop (Scottish National Party, Lothians)

If the resources are not being top sliced and are available now, will the minister explain why since 2003—when the Government came belatedly to the class-size reduction agenda—vacancies for English teachers have tripled and those for maths teachers have doubled? How on earth can he achieve his class-size reduction targets for 2007?

Peter Peacock (Labour, Highlands and Islands)

It might be a new year, but it appears that we have the same old moaning Scottish National Party. We ought to be celebrating what is happening in Scottish education and the increased number of teachers. There have been dramatic increases in the recruitment of maths teachers and English teachers, and teachers from other parts of the world and other parts of the United Kingdom are applying to come and teach in Scotland because of the reforms that we are making and because of our commitment to education. We are absolutely confident that we will achieve the class-size reduction targets that we have set ourselves. One of the means by which we will do that is the extra cash that we are putting into the system over the coming two years to allow the extra teachers whom we are training and recruiting to be employed by the local authorities.

Karen Gillon (Labour, Clydesdale)

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps it is taking to support young adults with special educational needs when they leave school. (S2O-8626)

Allan Wilson (Labour, Cunninghame North)

Young adults with additional support needs should, as far as is possible, when they leave school have the same opportunities as other young people to access training, further education and employment. The Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 puts duties on education authorities and others to achieve that. In addition, we have consulted recently on options for improving the opportunities that are available in further education to young such people. We will shortly publish our response to that consultation.

Karen Gillon (Labour, Clydesdale)

There is growing concern among families such as the Russell family in my constituency that young adults who have extremely complex special needs are not getting the provision that they should be getting and that they do not have equality of access to educational provision with their able-bodied counterparts because of financial constraints on local authorities. Will the minister meet me to discuss how we can begin to improve equality of distribution for such young adults, so that we can ensure that they get the most appropriate placements for their needs, and not just the placements that best reflect the local authority's financial needs?

Allan Wilson (Labour, Cunninghame North)

I would be pleased to meet Karen Gillon to discuss in detail her constituent's situation and the general issues that it raises. The document "supporting children's learning: code of practice" states:

"the transition process may be helped by the involvement of a key worker. This might be a teacher, careers adviser, social worker, community education worker or someone from another agency,"

There are clearly resource implications for a number of public agencies in ensuring that such children have appropriate support.

That document also states:

"The key worker can then assist the child or young person to make a smooth transition to employment, training, further or higher education",

which is the outcome that Karen Gillon's constituent and, indeed, all members, wish for.

James (Conservative, Lothians)

I welcome the minister's reply to Karen Gillon, but I ask him to say what action the Executive will take to rectify the situation that Skill Scotland identifies in the consultation document "Finding Practical Solutions to Complex Needs: Consultation on Arrangements for Supported Further Education Places and Funding for Students with Complex Needs", namely:

"Skill Scotland has regular contact from learners with additional needs who cannot access further education in Scotland, and yet they cannot get funding to access appropriate further education elsewhere."

Does the minister agree that it would be a matter of grave concern if such people were unfairly excluded from further education because of their needs and will he consider the matter sympathetically?

Allan Wilson (Labour, Cunninghame North)

We received 48 responses to the consultation, including one from Dr and Mrs Russell. Those responses are being analysed and the findings summarised, so I do not wish to pre-empt the outcome of that exercise. There are complex issues to be addressed around areas such as provision of financial support to meet needs—which Karen Gillon mentioned—provision of services, particularly those that are provided elsewhere in the United Kingdom, and improving services in Scotland. I have said that our guiding principle, which I am sure Lord James will support, is that we will, at the conclusion of the exercise, offer all our young people equality of opportunity as far as is sensible and practical, irrespective of their individual needs.

Mike Rumbles (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)

There is a genuine problem with the transition from school to post-school life. Local education authorities know that young adults with special needs are entering that transition, but they often leave it until the very last minute to do something. Would the minister consider issuing guidance to local authorities, so that they address such issues six or even 12 months before such young people are due to leave school?

Allan Wilson (Labour, Cunninghame North)

I agree fundamentally. That is, in part, why we launched the consultation on practical solutions to what I am sure the member agrees are complex needs. We wanted to learn more about the practices of local authorities, to which Mr Rumbles referred, and to understand more about the support needs in question. We are now, having accumulated that information, analysing and summarising it, and we hope to come up with proposals—which may or may not include advice such as Mr Rumbles seeks—to address needs better and to provide the equality of opportunity that I referred to.

Dennis Canavan (Independent, Falkirk West)

To ask the Scottish Executive how many secondary 1 and S2 English and mathematics classes are (a) over and (b) under the maximum class-size targets set by the Executive for 2007. (S2O-8608)

Peter Peacock (Labour, Highlands and Islands)

Individual class-size data are not routinely collected. However, in order to estimate the number of teachers that will be required to meet our commitments, data were collected in 2003 and will be collected again in 2007 to confirm that our targets have been met. The 2003 data showed that 16 per cent of maths and English classes were already below our planned target. Since then, the Executive has supported the recruitment of many additional maths and English teachers and we are well on the way to meeting in full our targets for 2007.

Dennis Canavan (Independent, Falkirk West)

If the minister still honestly believes that those classes will be reduced to a maximum of 20 pupils by next year, why is he afraid to provide more up-to-date statistics than those for 2003, which would enable us all to see what progress is being made? Is the minister aware of local authorities' concern that the Executive's commitment to reducing class sizes has not been fully funded? Is not it a fact that the minister has failed to provide up-to-date statistics because such statistics would reveal the embarrassing truth that he has not a snowball's chance in hell of reaching the targets by next year?

Peter Peacock (Labour, Highlands and Islands)

Well—where to start?

Peter Peacock (Labour, Highlands and Islands)

If members wait, they will get what they want.

The funding is fully in place to fund all the extra teachers. Indeed, in Dennis Canavan's local authority area of Falkirk an extra £1.6 million has been allocated, which will allow Falkirk Council to employ an extra 37 teachers.

If Dennis Canavan is looking for statistics, I will give him statistics. The maths intake into our teacher training colleges was up by 85 per cent in 2004 over the 2003 figure. In 2005, the figure was 75 per cent up on the 2003 figure. There were 500 extra maths teachers in training in 2004-05. In English, intake was up 52 per cent in 2004 and up 100 per cent in 2005 on the figure in 2003. There were 647 extra English teachers in training in 2004-05. External recruitment into secondary teaching was also up 82 per cent in Scotland. Maths external recruitment was up 100 per cent and English external recruitment was up 118 per cent.

If Mr Canavan wants statistics, I can give him oodles of them, all of which show that we are going to meet our targets.

Sylvia Jackson (Labour, Stirling)

As a member of the Educational Institute of Scotland, I have a keen interest in the subject. Will the minister confirm that the money that the Executive is investing, and will invest in the future, will ensure an increase in numbers to reach the targets for maths and English teachers and, more widely, the target of having 53,000 teachers by 2007? Will the Executive ensure that the targets are also met in areas where there is a growing population, such as my and Mary Mulligan's constituencies?

Peter Peacock (Labour, Highlands and Islands)

Just before Christmas, we announced an extra £18 million for the coming financial year and a further £44 million for the year thereafter on top of the normal settlement for local government, in terms of past teaching numbers. We also exempted teaching costs from the efficiency savings in the spending review specifically because we are trying to grow the extra teacher numbers to improve the quality of education throughout Scotland. I confirm that all that extra cash and the measures that we are taking will allow all our targets—including our target of 53,000 teachers and our specific class-size commitments at primary 1 and at secondary 1 and 2 for maths and English—to be met in full by 2007.

First Minister's Question Time

Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National Party, Glasgow)

I wish the First Minister a happy new year and ask him what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Scottish Executive's Cabinet. (S2F-2038)

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

The Cabinet will discuss issues of importance to Scotland. I return Ms Sturgeon's greetings, and wish all other members a happy new year.

On a sadder note, I wish to record the death of Rachel Squire MP, who, in her nearly 20 years in the House of Commons, was a constant supporter of devolution. Her constituency, and Scotland, is a sadder place as a result of her passing away.

It is also right to record that, in his time as leader of the Liberal Democrat Party, Charles Kennedy was a strong supporter of this Parliament in advance of its creation and while it has existed. We should record our thanks to him for the role that, until last weekend, he had played for many years in that job. [Applause.]

Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National Party, Glasgow)

I echo the First Minister's comments about Charlie Kennedy and, in particular, about Rachel Squire, who, as an MP, was well respected across the political spectrum in Scotland.

I assure the First Minister that the issue that I am about to raise is not party political. It is an issue of public concern, and I know that it will concern him as greatly as it concerns me. He will be aware that, south of the border, there are concerns about the possibility that people on the sex offenders register are being employed to work with children. Will he assure us that there is no possibility that anyone on the sex offenders register in Scotland will be employed to work with children in any capacity?

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

Our position—which I believe is shared by all parties—is that no one in Scotland who would be a danger to children should be employed to work with them. The systems that we have established and the planned improvements to them are designed to ensure that we meet that objective.

A number of systems are in place in Scotland. First, there is the sex offenders register that Ms Sturgeon mentioned. Secondly, there is the list of people who are disqualified from working with children, and it is an offence for someone to employ a person on that list to work with children. Thirdly, we have the system of disclosure and the absolute necessity not only for local authorities and the General Teaching Council for Scotland, but for other public bodies to ensure that full disclosure is made of past offences and convictions before anyone is employed to work with children.

I hope that, with all those different systems in place, no one will get through the net. However, we cannot guarantee that no employers or employees in Scotland are breaking the system or the law. The systems should deliver what we seek to achieve, and I hope that all public authorities in Scotland are adhering to them and to the law to ensure that that is the case.

Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National Party, Glasgow)

The First Minister referred to the disqualified from working with children list, which lists all the people in Scotland who are, by law, banned from working with children. Is he aware that, according to a written parliamentary answer on 21 December 2005, 56 people are currently on that list? However, there are more than 2,800 people on the sex offenders register in Scotland. Does the First Minister share my concern that there may be—I put it no more strongly than that—the potential for someone who is on the sex offenders register but not on the disqualified from working with children list to slip through the child protection net? Is he prepared to review the law to ensure that such a risk is minimised?

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

Sir Michael Bichard himself said that the systems in Scotland were vastly superior to those south of the border. However, we feel that, as a result of his report, there are further changes that we should implement. We intend to bring our further plans to Parliament and go out to consultation on them this year.

I believe that the number of people on the disqualified from working with children list, which was established last January, has risen from the 56 that was mentioned in the parliamentary answer to 63. The list is important, and it is important that the Parliament introduced it. After all, it is absolutely right that, in Scotland, it is a criminal offence for someone to employ a person on the list to work with children or, indeed, for someone on the list to apply for a job that involves working with children.

It is also important that, when authorities obtain the enhanced disclosure that they must obtain, they have information about those who are on the sex offenders register—and, indeed, about those who are not on the register but who have other convictions, such as convictions for serious drugs offences—and that they ensure that that information is taken into account in advance of any decision about recruitment.

I believe that those systems should be robust and that information about the sex offenders register, which is available to all authorities in Scotland, should stop the employment of anybody who is unsuitable to work with children. I cannot guarantee that someone will not get through the net. If they do so, those who have allowed that to happen should be held accountable for it. However, I believe that those systems, which can lead to further improvement, have been rightly established by this Parliament and can be implemented effectively by authorities in Scotland.

Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National Party, Glasgow)

Does the First Minister agree that the gap between 56 or 63 people—or whatever the figure is at present—and almost 3,000 people is far too wide, and that for as long as it remains that big we cannot guarantee that people on the sex offenders register, perhaps with convictions relating to child sex offences, will not end up working with children in Scotland? Does he agree that that is unacceptable? Does he agree with yesterday's comments by Sir Michael Bichard, who said that we want to move rapidly to a situation in which, if someone is on the sex offenders register, they should not work with children? Will the First Minister guarantee that the Scottish Executive will change the law to incorporate the sex offenders register into the disqualified from working with children list and that it will do so immediately?

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

As I said, we are preparing plans to implement the Bichard recommendations further. Those plans will be published this year and we hope to legislate at an early opportunity in order to implement any of the outstanding Bichard recommendations that are required to ensure not only that systems north and south of the border work together properly, but that systems in Scotland are as effective as they can be. I want to be absolutely clear about that.

I do not want to give the impression—and I am sure that Nicola Sturgeon does not want to give the impression—that anyone who is on the sex offenders register can be employed to work with children, or in any other inappropriate situation, without the authorities being able to check that in advance and stop it happening. That is the case in Scotland. It is not possible to employ someone to work with children in Scotland without that enhanced disclosure and without that information being available. Parliament set up the additional list—the list of those who are specifically disqualified from working with children—because we wanted a further safeguard to be in place in Scotland. That list has been operational since last January and I think that it will be important in the future. However, I believe that the relationship between the sex offenders register and the systems relating to working with children in Scotland requires further attention, and that is why it is being given that attention.

I am absolutely certain that no authority in Scotland should be employing anyone to work with children who is inappropriate for that work. This Parliament should demand, on a cross-party basis, that systems are put in place to ensure that that is put into practice. At the end of the day, if anyone breaks through the net and breaks that line, they must be held accountable for doing do.

Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National Party, Glasgow)

Does the First Minister acknowledge that there is currently a gap, in that someone's inclusion on the sex offenders register will be disclosed to a prospective employer but, unless that person is also on the disqualified from working with children list, that will not bar them from working with children, because it is left to the employer's discretion? I asked the First Minister a specific question, and I shall ask him it again. Will he give an assurance that future changes to the law will bar everyone on the sex offenders register from working with children in the future—yes or no?

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

When this Parliament established the disqualified from working with children list last year, it decided not to make that list retrospective. If Parliament wanted to change that position, additional legislation would be needed. That would be a requirement if we were to implement Ms Sturgeon's suggestion. In the meantime, the position is absolutely clear. No authority in Scotland can employ someone to work with children without getting disclosures of previous convictions or of inclusion on the sex offenders register. We should be absolutely clear that authorities in Scotland should not be employing anyone who is a danger to children because they are on that register or because they pose a danger from any other perspective.

Nicola Sturgeon (Scottish National Party, Glasgow)

They can slip through the net.

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

I think that the position has to be clear. The Parliament voted for the disqualified from working with children list not to be retrospective. If members believe that the list should be retrospective, a proposal to change the legislation should be brought to the Parliament. I would not want to give the impression—we should not give the impression—that the existing legislation allows people to get through the net and to be employed by local authorities to work with children if they are a danger to children. All the systems that are in place in Scotland, which have been praised by Bichard, are in place to stop that happening. We cannot guarantee that someone will not get through the net, but if they ever do so, the people who are responsible for employing someone in such a situation should be held accountable, whether they work for a local authority or any other public agency.

Annabel Goldie (Conservative, West of Scotland)

To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Prime Minister and what issues they will discuss. (S2F-2039)

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

I have no immediate plans to meet the Prime Minister, but I have plans to speak to him and I will obviously wish him a happy new year.

Annabel Goldie (Conservative, West of Scotland)

I am sure that that will comfort him greatly.

I am certain that the public in Scotland will be as mystified and, indeed, horrified as the rest of us about yesterday's collapse of a trial for attempted murder in the High Court in Edinburgh because of bureaucratic error. Does the First Minister accept that we urgently need a speedy inquiry into that fiasco to establish exactly what went wrong?

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

I do not think that we need a wholesale inquiry. In such circumstances, the right thing to do is to ask the Lord Advocate to examine the matter and the steps that he can take. He is doing that today.

Annabel Goldie (Conservative, West of Scotland)

I am comforted to some extent by that response, but there is another issue lurking. What is alarming is the suspicion that the case is a symptom of a wider problem in the system and a demonstration of judicial frustration that an accused who was being held in a Scottish prison could not be located by the Crown Office. If that individual had been in Castle Huntly prison, he could have been anywhere but, as it happens, he was in Barlinnie.

When the First Minister asks the Lord Advocate to investigate the case, will he ask him to consider how we might improve communications between the different parts of the justice system to ensure that any person who is locked up in jail can be transported to the appropriate court on the due date to face trial?

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

I do not think that that is an accurate representation of what has happened, but I am extremely concerned about what has been reported today on the impact of what appears to have been human error in providing the wrong information to the wrong people.

From the very brief indication that the Lord Advocate has just provided—members will have noticed his giving it—I understand that the proceedings in question may still be live, so it would be inappropriate for me to comment in detail on the case today. However, I give the Parliament an absolute assurance that the commitment that we have given over recent years to legislate and to take administrative action to improve our justice system so that our courts operate more efficiently, more cases are brought to them timeously and more resources are provided to obtain more accurate evidence and thus ensure that there are more convictions of course applies today and will apply again in the future. If things go wrong in individual cases—as appears to have happened in the case that Annabel Goldie raises—they should be investigated properly by the Lord Advocate and he should take the appropriate action.

George Reid (None, Ochil)

Final question.

Annabel Goldie (Conservative, West of Scotland)

I do not know whether it is reassuring or discomfiting to see the Lord Advocate scurrying round the Parliament to brief the First Minister. To put the public mind at ease and to disabuse it of any perception of complacency on the part of the First Minister, will he confirm to me—I understand that he may want to do so in writing—on how many occasions since 1999 court proceedings have been disrupted or abandoned because an accused person who was being held in custody was not brought to the right court on the right day at the right time?

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

We should wait and see what the position is with the case in question once accurate information has been obtained and proceedings have concluded.

There is an absolute guarantee that I can give to Annabel Goldie. In 2003, we gave a commitment to have a root-and-branch review of our justice system that would ensure that our court proceedings were more effective and would waste less time for victims, witnesses and police officers. I am certain that that will be the case by the end of the current parliamentary session. We also gave a commitment that the information in the system would be pulled together more coherently, communicated to the right people and used more effectively and that there would be less time wasting in that process, too.

We have given a commitment to ensuring that sentencing is more consistent. Our other commitments have been to the better resourcing of the courts, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and the police. All those different commitments and actions will have improved the situation far beyond where it was back in 1999. That is one of the great benefits of devolution and of the Scottish Parliament. We are delivering on it.

George Reid (None, Ochil)

There are two current constituency questions.

Euan Robson (Liberal Democrat, Roxburgh and Berwickshire)

The First Minister will be aware of the recent textiles industry redundancies in Hawick in my constituency. Will he consider further targeted investments in specific overseas marketing initiatives to win orders in an increasingly competitive market? Does he agree that there are advantages to the local enterprise network leading national initiatives for specific industries, as Scottish Enterprise Borders does at the moment for textiles?

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

First, although I express regret at the announcements to which Euan Robson refers, I want to make clear that parts of the Scottish textiles industry are doing very well. We should praise and support them in all that they are doing at home and abroad. I do not want to give the impression—neither, I am sure, does Euan Robson—that the industry is in some form of permanent crisis. Companies in the industry have innovated and invested and are succeeding as a result.

At the same time, it is important to say that, both in Scotland and abroad, the focus of Scottish Enterprise and its different arms is to boost and grow Scottish companies and employment and to ensure that other markets around the world are made well aware of the high quality of goods that are produced in Scotland. There is a role in that for the local enterprise companies in the Borders and elsewhere. Scottish Enterprise has recently implemented a huge increase in its overseas staff. I am certain that that will make a difference for Scottish companies in the years to come.

Bristow Muldoon (Labour, Livingston)

My question is on the antisocial behaviour dispersal order that was made in the community of Mid Calder. Is the First Minister aware of the comments of Superintendent Harry Watters of Lothian and Borders police, who said:

"The dispersal order has had exactly the impact we had hoped for with no significant incidents of disorder, a significant reduction in calls and a community truly heartened by the improvement"?

Will the First Minister take that as an affirmation that the dispersal order is an important tool for communities and the police in tackling antisocial behaviour?

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

Clearly, there has been a huge impact in Mid Calder as a result of the dispersal order. We should congratulate those who were responsible for pursuing it in the first place and those who have ensured that it has been well implemented over the past month. It is important for us to recognise that dispersal orders were designed for precisely such situations. They act as a short-term measure to break up a problem that has existed for far too long.

The original scare stories about dispersal orders portrayed them as some sort of permanent curfew that would damage communities for all time. They have been proven to be wrong. Dispersal orders work as a short-term, sharp measure to break up a long-term problem. The people of Mid Calder are obviously enjoying the benefits of that just now. I hope that others in Scotland will follow.

Robin Harper (Green, Lothians)

To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland and what issues he intends to discuss. (S2F-2043)

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

I meet the Secretary of State for Scotland regularly and we discuss a wide range of issues.

Robin Harper (Green, Lothians)

Yesterday, the Deputy Minister for Environment and Rural Development said:

"One thing that we can all accept is that every one of us ... must play our part in delivering a sustainable Scotland."—[Official Report, 11 January 2005; c 22211-22212.]

What will the First Minister's personal contribution to sustainability be?

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

Where do I start with a question like that?

I have two contributions to make, the first of which is to provide leadership in the Executive and the Parliament in order to ensure, as we have done over the years, that the environment and sustainable development are taken more seriously by us all collectively, as a Government and a Parliament. For example, when I took over as First Minister back in late 2001, Scotland's record on the recycling of waste was among the most shameful and shocking in the world. Today, there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of our waste that is recycled. We continue to invest in waste plans and the education that goes with them. That is making a difference in Scotland and will make a difference to sustainable development. On a personal level, I make my own contribution to that every week.

Robin Harper (Green, Lothians)

Table 8 on page 18 of the Executive's environmental performance annual report tells us that the figure for all departmental Executive car miles increased from 1.9 million to 2.9 million between 2001 and 2005. The same report sets out the Executive's current target for a 5 per cent reduction in business car vehicle mileage, but goes on to suggest that rather than action being taken to enable that target to be met, the target should be abandoned. Is that sustainable? How can the First Minister justify the increase and the extraordinary decision to do nothing about it?

Jack McConnell (Labour, Motherwell and Wishaw)

Last night, after the television had gone off—with the red light off, I hope—I was not sitting reading page 18 of the Executive's environmental performance report. Perhaps I should have been, but I was not.

Robin Harper raises a serious issue. All organisations, public and private, should consider the extent of car use by their staff and the way in which their organisations' systems incentivise such car use or a reduction in it. I am happy to consider the issue in more detail as a result of the question.

Pauline McNeill (Labour, Glasgow Kelvin)

To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Executive is concerned about the recent increase in rail fares. (S2F-2052)